


Called to Two Masters

by cognomen, MayGlenn



Series: Man Has Only Two Masters [1]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: ABO as Gender and Sex Politics, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angry Sex, Chess, Chess Metaphors, Complete, Dom/sub Undertones, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Injuries, Mutual Pining, Napoleon is a Little Shit, Oral Sex, Period-Typical Homophobia, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-02-28 12:57:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13271913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cognomen/pseuds/cognomen, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayGlenn/pseuds/MayGlenn
Summary: “Far be it for me to suggest, but I can think of better ways for you two to resolve your tensions. And I think the root of the problem stems from the fact that you two both can, also.” Napoleon looked up, waiting to catch the result of his ambush on Illya’s face. “Though I know I venture my opinion at my own Peril.”The corner of his mouth quirks up, Napoleon clearly pleased with his own wit even though he does his best to hide his tally point against the edge of his glass.Illya’s mouth forms a thin line. He gets that it was meant to be a joke, but it is not funny. Nor are Napoleon’s other insinuations.“It’s ten in the morning, Napoleon,” Gaby protests. Too early for puns, or scotch.“Is it?”“Do you reach a point in your day when you stop drinking?”“Hmm. Do you reach a point in yours where you stop deflecting?”





	1. Chapter 1

There’s a certain amount of arguing you expect from two alphas shut in together with an omega. Even if both are arguably professionals with a history of rising above their circumstances for the sake of the mission. Napoleon would gauge that these two are especially combative, and whatever they’d risen above in the past hadn’t tested them like this tests them. 

For the first two days he ignores it; what’s the saying? Lead by example? He figures if he pretends enough casual calmness and detachment the pair will get over themselves. If he’d been the cause of it (and he hated to admit how many little needles it drives into his carefully cultivated topiary of pride that he  _ isn’t _ ) it might have worked. 

Instead, on the third day, when he exits the woefully understocked bathroom with his toiletry kit tucked under his arm—he’d left it there the first night and found  _ both _ alphas availing themselves of his belongings in absence of their own, and hasn’t left it since—and finds another fight ensuing, he does his best to drift through it. It’s not  _ really  _ a fight.

“You can’t dress me anymore like I’m your little  _ doll— _ ”

“I try to do something nice for you is all—”

“Nice? I don’t need protection, I’m not an—”

Gaby catches herself before she spits the last word,  _ omega _ , her eyes cutting toward Napoleon and stabbing another little pin into his voodoo doll pride. 

He answers her with a tame tilt of his head to convey his offense with the angle of his eyebrows, a quirk of his mouth into the first hint of a disapproving scowl, and altered course for the drink cart. He pulled a cork from a nice bourbon, and wondered if he should hope it was drugged this time.

“By all means, finish fighting. You won’t drive me from this broken home,” he drawls, smoothing the tiny injuries in his soul with amber alcohol slick on his tongue. 

“I’m sorry,” Gaby says, to Napoleon (for all that she isn’t looking at him), and at the same time Illya echoes, definitely to Gaby, “Sorry.” 

Gaby doesn’t like to apologize, but she was being intolerably rude to Napoleon, with whom she’s not the least bit annoyed. She takes a deep breath and speaks in German. “[That was rude of me, Napoleon. You do not deserve to be dragged into this. I also did not thank you for breakfast. It was very good.]” 

Napoleon looks at her first, over the rim of his glass, and then to Illya, admiring her dedication to avoiding the main issue while baring her teeth over far more minor ones. He shouldn’t play into this, but he is happy to hurry it along until the tension broke and resolved into what it clearly should be, instead. “[Better than my risotto?]”

Illya knows he’s being excluded by the switch to German, and grumbles and stalks off to grab the paper left on their doorstep. Maybe his ego is still bruised from the last mission: his failure, according to his superiors and subsequent attachment to a  _ British _ Intelligence agent of all things; Gaby and Napoleon both still bearing obvious injuries that speak of how poorly Illya had protected them, upsetting him just to look at them; and, yes, all right, he missed the fake-relationship he had to maintain with Gaby. It is nice not to have to douse himself every morning in Beta pheromones anymore, but he—well—maybe has feelings for her. Another  _ Alpha _ . Unheard of. 

He is going to end up in Siberia for sure… 

Napoleon watches him go, lifts his glass to his mouth again as he speaks to Gaby. “[For someone who was happy to  hurl herself at a Nazi wielding a tire iron, you seem to be afraid of facing yourself on this.]”

He didn’t like the sound of his voice in German, though he never had minded the language. The idea that languages could sound harsh or angry was one he’d found limiting. He returned to English, comfortable for all three of them, and picked an imaginary stray thread from the plush lapel of his bathrobe. “Far be it for me to suggest, but I can think of better ways for you two to resolve your tensions. And I think the root of the problem stems from the fact that you two both  _ can _ , also.”

He looked up, waiting to catch the result of his ambush on Illya’s face. “Though I know I venture my opinion at my own Peril.”

The corner of his mouth quirks up, Napoleon clearly pleased with his own wit even though he does his best to hide his tally point against the edge of his glass.

Illya’s mouth forms a thin line. He gets that it was meant to be a joke, but it is not funny. 

Nor are Napoleon’s other insinuations.

“It’s ten in the morning, Napoleon,” Gaby protests. Too early for puns or—scotch?

“Is it?” 

“Do you reach a point in your day when you stop drinking?”

“Hmm. Do you reach a point in yours where you stop deflecting?”

With a frustrated huff, Gaby retreats into the bathroom, to hide or to take her turn in it. She runs a bath—and touches herself, a different kind of frustrated (or maybe it’s all the same).

Illya and Napoleon are left alone in the plush but cramped living room. 

“You shouldn't antagonize her,” Illya says, but should the Cowboy think he  _ cares _ , he adds, “She is the one less likely to kill you.”

He is not afraid of Napoleon's words, so Illya sits across from him with the paper, scanning it for anything that might help them on their mission. His Turkish is only barely passable, more spoken than written, but it's better (so far) than Napoleon’s or Gaby’s, so Illya allows himself to feel smug about it. His mood sours, of course, when there is still nothing of interest to their mission in the paper. Not even a picture of a rescued puppy like there was last week to lift his mood.  

Napoleon arranges every part of himself artfully in one of the Turkish armchairs they’d been provided and which offended almost every part of his soul. They certainly seemed barely accommodating for people to sit in, let alone artfully lounge like Napoleon prefers when he’s just gotten out of the shower.

“So I should antagonize you?” Napoleon wonders, when Illya seems perfectly content to hide behind a wall of newspaper. Just a normal marriage, then. He’d seen his father hide from his mother’s righteous wrath like this for years. He sets down his empty glass of bourbon on the ugly side-table; all so modern and tasteless, like everything else surrounding him these days. “We have nothing but time until our leads come back in. You two could work this out, if you’d talk honestly about it. Even dishonestly. Or are you going to just fight it out like you did in Rome?”

This could all have worked out then, Napoleon thinks.  _ If only life were simple _ .

There were a million reasons why it wasn’t. 

Illya determinedly ignores him. Easy for Napoleon to say—handsome omega that he is—and that’s Illya’s  _ other  _ fear, that if he and Gaby tell themselves hard enough that they don’t want each other that they’ll start fighting over Napoleon instead, and he would just be  _ insufferable  _ then. More insufferable. The kind of insufferable where Illya would just have to put him over his knee…

He turns the page, silent, not even really reading. 

Napoleon waits, leveling his cool gaze on the newspaper wall as if he could penetrate it; but to be honest, he can’t even read it. The whole affair perturbs him, but all he can do about it is hope these two figure life out. Or help it along, he decides, when the waft of alpha hormones from the shower—normally his first sign of counting coup—invades his keenly attuned senses and leaves him as completely aware of her as he is of Illya. He’d be blind not to see it; every time they stood next to each other they started to reek of it. 

“I hope you’re not worried about what  _ I’d _ think of you,” Napoleon drawls onward, when he’s sure Gaby has turned off the shower spray and can probably hear him. His hands are folded tamely over the front of his robe, as if he has all the time in the world to lay here wet and nearly naked and dispensing life advice. “You know, I’d be perfectly content to serve as your excuse, if the two of you would set aside your bickering and just admit you’re attracted to each other.”

“It is not that simple,” Illya says, before he remembers he meant to not talk to Napoleon, and then lets the newspaper fall into his lap to glare at him. It doesn’t help the fact that he can smell Gaby from here that Napoleon’s hair is curly when it’s damp, and his his legs are bare and just on this side of an obscene distance apart. 

“Put some clothes on,” he barks, and lifts the paper again. 

Napoleon hoists himself out of his chair to comply, not because Illya is an alpha, but because getting dressed will give him an excuse to be out of the main room for however long it takes to put on his armor and get it fitted. He hesitates only long enough to slide in one last jab. “It’s not that difficult either, Peril.”


	2. Chapter 2

Of course it doesn’t resolve. Of course it builds. Napoleon can see the way Illya’s tells and twitches ramp up towards an explosion as he and Gaby evolve to the silent treatment. They, by some mutual decision, have decided to exchange only monosyllables.  _ Very _ alpha of them.

Napoleon puts on his suit on day four, pulling the waistcoat tight at his middle, because all that tailoring makes his shoulders look even bigger and he’s never once in his life wanted to look like the omegas they parade by on television as the ideal. Docile, willowy, usually caring for their brood of at least five children, and as often female as they could manage. He’s discovered that if you can buck the trend with enough flair and fashion, the uncommon is far more desirable.

So when he exits in full armor, with his shirt cuffs just  _ so _ and his hair combed to perfection, cologne applied and walks face first into a wall of alpha hormones, it raises all the little hairs on the back of his neck.

“I think I’ll go for a walk,” he says, voice even and level, even his calm threatened by all this. By ‘a walk’ he means, probably, that he’ll go ease his nerves by stealing a Picasso. 

“We’re not supposed to leave,” Gaby reminds him, testily. She is trying to find something to watch on the tiny black and white television, flicking idly between channels. Her dress is short enough to leave little to the imagination.

“Especially not you,” Illya adds. He is trying to beat himself at chess. You could cut the sexual tension—and all other kinds of tension—with a knife. 

Without even pretending offense—of course he knows why he’s the special case, but these two are playing hell with his biology—Napoleon makes a noise like that’s an interesting point, sweeping by between Gaby and her television, and along the table where Illya is playing chess against himself. He’s the only one who can give himself any challenge, anyway. Napoleon had lost to him several times, miserably, and in good cheer that seemed to infuriate Illya further because chess was so  _ serious _ of course. 

Illya is sitting on the black side. Napoleon reaches out and shifts a white knight into the wrong space, then pockets the queen when Illya glares at him for it. 

When Illya glances back down at the game, it takes him several seconds to notice the queen is gone, and he stands up, an intimidation move that he is immediately ashamed of. He might have sat right back down if Gaby hadn’t snapped, “Illya,” at him, in that  _ tone _ . 

“Give it back,” Illya clips at Napoleon. “And you  _ stay _ , like the rest of us.” 

Napoleon is no small man himself, and it always sends a low thrill down his spine that when Illya wants to be, he seems even taller than he actually is, which is enough that Napoleon has to step back or tip his head back to meet his eye. He can’t quite understand how Gaby must feel about it, but it’s novel enough that  _ he _ likes it. He levers a look at Illya that’s equal parts unimpressed and daring him to do anything about it, all the while maintaining a careful mask of civility, one he seems to affix to his face in the morning with cement for all that the two alphas tax him for it.

His response is just as nonverbal as the discussion between Gaby and Illya has been, a hum that’s somewhere between a verbal checkmark and an  _ aha _ , the queen in his hand in his pocket, loosely held, and he turns for the door as if the whole thing were only a philosophical exercise. 

In a way it  _ is,  _ but probably only to Napoleon. 

“Solo,” Illya says, grabbing his arm hard enough to muss his suit, and, huh, when had it happened that  _ not  _ calling him ‘Cowboy’ meant he was annoyed with him? 

“ _ Don’t _ you two start,” Gaby says, looking like she actually does want them to fight. “If you pester him into smashing your pretty face in, you’ll deserve it.” 

Illya raises an eyebrow at Napoleon, emboldened. It’s the first thing Gaby has said that could be construed as being vaguely on his side in days. 

Napoleon turns a vaguely offended look in Gaby’s direction. “You mean you won’t defend my honor?”

Of course she wouldn’t, because for once, this wasn’t about him. Not really. Still, he shakes his arm free of Illya’s grip, and shows both his empty hands, as if wondering what Illya is truly accusing him of; his suit pants of course follow the curve of his body so closely that the bulge of the chess piece is visible, but when Illya’s eyes trace it, and then raise again to Napoleon’s face, all he’s earned is a smug expression, suggestive, a clear implication that what had just happened had been sexual and not about a missing chess piece.

There’s that same moment of charged tension between them, and Napoleon allows a brief serenity to overtake him right before Illya overturns him backwards over the wooden armchair and he finally begins defending himself. 

Poorly. It always goes poorly fighting Illya; he’s got arms longer than some zip codes in New York, and for all that a good sense of his own balance that means Napoleon has a hard time throwing him over, but Illya has an easy one contorting him (and his  _ suit _ , Napoleon thinks sullenly, detached as Illya drives the breath out of him with a well placed jab to one of his kidneys, the things he does for  _ friendship _ ) into whatever choke hold he desires. 

If he said there was nothing in it for him, Napoleon would be  _ lying _ , of course, but he’d deny how many of his buttons it pushed to be completely overpowered and bent until he  _ ached _ until his dying breath, no matter how it caused spasms in his lower belly that warned he’d soon start to get slick.

The struggle is over before Illya has a chance to think, and it makes him angry with himself, how Napoleon can goad him like that (and, less recognized but no less real, how he doesn’t really want to hurt Napoleon). He paws Napoleon’s trousers until he finds the chess piece and sets it aside. “Do not you test me, too.”

Gaby doesn’t like the sound of that ‘too,’ and looks up. “Illya, damn it! Why don't you pick on someone your own size?”

They all might have, at any other time, found it funny. They know what she means: him bullying an omega, even a very annoying one, doesn’t make anyone look good. But on the other hand, alpha or no, Gaby is nowhere near Illya’s size. 

As if frustrated by the need to laugh and having absolutely zero desire to do so, Gaby picks up a heavy ugly paperweight and chucks it at Illya’s head, so that he has to let go of Napoleon to dodge. 

“You are just as much brat as he is,” Illya cries, and then Gaby launches herself at him.

Napoleon extricates himself over the ruins of the chair, getting out of range of the cat-slash-alpha fight that’s bulldozing the remains of the flat. He winces just faintly as he draws straight, and perhaps that was as much for how they kick over the whole table and send chess pieces flying everywhere in the scuffle for the bruise forming parallel to his spine.

They snarl and yelp and every time Illya starts to back off Gaby slaps him across the face to goad him on, and Napoleon withdraws only to a safe enough distance to right his suit. He frowns at one scuff on his shoe, lifting his leg like a farrier might manhandle a horse into position and has a look, before he pulls it off, frowning. 

They’re still fighting when he’s done retrieving his polish kit, though it’s less fighting and more writhing, and Napoleon polishes the scuff out of the brown leather, his best match for the warm grey suit he has to re-assemble into perfection. He lets his eyes wander up—still fighting—polishes a little more, and then rechecks his progress on each front.

When they’re finished, laying in a panting heap and looking hard into each other’s eyes, mouths so close, so  _ very _ close, Napoleon’s instinct is to put his shoe back on and give them the privacy to finish it, but he doesn’t trust that they  _ will _ . 

Gaby is on top again, like that night when she was drunk and Illya was just confused, and so he stares at her now, deer-in-headlights again. 

She’s not going to pass out in the middle of a kiss this time, though. 

_ He looks so cute when he’s scared,  _ she thinks, letting herself enjoy this.

_ She’s so gorgeous when she—but I’m straight! I like omegas! I don’t want to end up in Siberia!  _

Illya is about to panic again, about to buck her off and run, so she kisses him before he can make a move. And, oh, he just  _ melts  _ for her, and then she knows it’s all over. She holds onto his lapels and keeps him close, until she’s sure all his instincts to run away have finally quieted.

To himself, Napoleon allows a faint smile of triumph. There’s a feeling behind his heart like a pain and wellspring all in one, a sort of pride to see the obvious result reach fruition. But while he’s certainly proud of his work, he’s not a  _ voyeur _ , so he fades back into his room and supposes he can read a while longer until some of the restlessness is out of the house.

When Illya’s arms slide around her again, it is to hold her, not to get her off, and he tilts his head up into her mouth. It is such a relief to finally be kissing her that he doesn’t think about anything else. Not how he can feel her cock through her thin underwear, since her skirt has slid up in the struggle. Not how she tastes sweeter than any omega he has ever kissed—which wasn’t many—nor how her smell is intoxicating instead of off-putting, as all other alphas have always smelled to him. He sighs, body relaxing in ways it hadn’t since he had met her. 

She digs her nails into his chest through his clothes, finding him over-dressed, though when she finally sits back from kissing him she finds them in the middle of the wreckage of what had once been their living room and she sighs, leans down to kiss him again, and discards a pawn from where it has rolled beneath her knee, uncomfortable. 

Gaby pulls the buttons to his coat as she kisses him, and maybe she should be thinking about this as what it is; as two alphas doing something good boys and girls shouldn’t, but she doesn’t  _ care _ . She wants Illya as a person, his ridiculously tall gawky frame to be at her mercy, and it pleases her to put him there. Maybe not in his  _ place _ but into a place, where she’s in command. 

Sitting back only a half inch as she ground herself down against his hips, and bit his mouth. “Touch me, Illya. You can.” 

“[I-I don’t, uh—]” Illya begins, stuttering even in Russian, and thinks this is why he tries to stay quiet...all the time. His fingers trace up her thighs. He remembers checking the tracker tucked in a garter around her thigh, remembers the scent of her, and he’s getting it now. It makes his fingertips tremble. He swallows, and bites his lip as he looks up at her. “Not too cold this time?” 

“They’ll warm up,” she assures him. She discards his coat—it’s too warm in Istanbul for a coat anyway—peeling it off his body though it requires some manhandling. “See? They’re already getting warmer.”

Illya doesn’t answer, like he might break the spell if he tries again. He is mesmerized instead, held by her brown eyes and long lashes, now that he’s looked up. 

Gaby shifts to push his hand against her inner thigh, riding higher beneath her skirt, and smiles at him, feral. She leans down, kisses his nose, kisses his mouth. “You’re trembling.”

“I’m  _ not— _ ” Illya protests, but he is. He can at least get his hand up under her dress, trembling or no, and feel her cock pulsing through her thin underwear. “You’re, ah...I’ve never—” 

Of  _ course  _ he’s never fucking touched another alpha’s cock before, he  _ is  _ an alpha! This is wrong!

Illya tries to sit up again, abruptly. Gaby lets him up halfway, but doesn’t get off his lap, instead getting her own hand on his cock through his pants, to still the motion. She tips her head down, lets her voice drop an octave into something authoritative. “Do you want to stop?”

Well, when she asks him, point-blank like that,  _ no— _ they’ve destroyed the whole living room so they might as well make this worth it. Certainly not now that she’s got his cock in her hand. He shakes his head, still mute, though he’s at a loss of what to do. Except—

Illya surges into her, grabbing the back of her head to kiss her. She’s so small, but so distressingly powerful, and surprisingly heavy. Her neck, though lithe, is taut with muscles, and he’s not afraid to hurt her as he scrabbles into her panties—he wants to tear them off, and does, just rips them down the middle to get his hands on her. She’s hot and heavy in his hands, feels almost comically big for the size of the rest of her body, and Illya almost smiles. This feels...good. 

She gasps, and finds herself irritated at how delicate it sounds; it doesn’t usually, but it’s hard to find a contrast to Illya’s deep voice that doesn’t sound pale and small. For all that he’d admitted he hasn’t done this before, his hands know; just like hers do from her experiences touching herself. They both have good instincts, they just need a little…modification. Like putting a new engine into a car.

“That’s it,” she purrs, working to undo his pants so she can get skin-to-skin with him, curl her hand around his cock and feel his knot, working it in her grip as the nervous-electric scent of the two of them together starts to fill the air. She grins at Illya, looking at him through her long lashes. “This is far from disappointing, given the size of the rest of you.”

This makes Illya blush fiercely, half in pride and half in genuine embarrassment, but his grip on her doesn’t falter. He does feel as though he ought to say something, though. “Not  _ all  _ so little, eh, Chop-Shop Girl?” 

It’s worth it for the way she scrunches her nose at him. She’s just wet enough on the head of her cock that he can use it to slick the way, and his fingers work lower, over her knot, giving it an affectionate squeeze like he knows he likes, and then his fingers probe deeper, into those folds that he so desperately wants to sink his cock. 

She lets him get this far, though she stays in command of the situation by remaining settled atop him, though it makes it awkward. She can hike her dress up, but his pants are getting too tight for her to work with. Finally, she sits up on her knees and shoves them down over his hips so she can get her hands on him properly, stroking with both now, watching the way his expression changes as she finally leans down to get her mouth on him, a gesture that’s both just a little subservient and all about having an effect—a sort of control, by the way she watches him, still.

“Fuck!” he exclaims—one of the few words better in English than Russian. He doesn’t dare to grip her hair, and in fact he almost has to let go of her entirely as she slides down his body. His ass is bare on the floor and she’s sucking his cock but he has never felt so vulnerable, like he knows her teeth are sharp. Illya gives one single solitary sound that might be construed as a whimper and then clenches down on it. He flails, unsure what to do with his hands. 

“Gaby,” he says, like it’s the only word he knows. 

The corner of her mouth turns up, apparently getting everything she was looking for and more as she swallowed him down to the knot, where even she has to admit defeat. She can work her clever tongue against him though, and finally she closes her eyes, as if giving him permission to let go a little. One of her hands is steadying his knot, squeezing just a little, but the other reaches forward, joins their hands so he can squeeze her fingers as she takes and teases him, works him rapid-pace toward the edge. They could take their time in the future, of course, but after all this; all this build up and denial, she wants what she wants,  _ now _ . Any alpha would. 

Illya isn't sure who is giving and who is taking, here, but he's not particularly bothered about it. He squeezes her hand and lies back and groans for it, his stomach muscles jumping with desire, nerves, and anticipation.

She lets off his knot and teases down, pressing behind his balls, as he’d pressed at her, but without any real insistence—just stroking over his perineum and down, circling his entrance almost feather-light as she works her tongue over the head of his cock.  

Illya has  _ certainly _ never been touched there, but it seems natural now, for her to do it, and he's not about to try to stop her. He's so close, panting now, fingers curling into Gaby’s hair as he warns— 

“Gaby—gonna—I'm—”

She retrieves her hand, drawing back to work her tongue over the head of his cock and give his knot enough of a squeeze to be sure he’s going to tip over, knowing  _ just _ how to get him there. How to make it good for him. But she doesn’t swallow, instead sitting back and watching Illya rocket over the edge, jetting his release onto his own belly without any cares for how it will likely stain his shirt.

Illya grunts like he's been punched, and comes all over himself, messy, like a teenager, and it's among the best orgasms of his life. He's dazed for a second, and when concern for all of what he's doing threatens to rush back, Gaby is there. Gaby is all right.

“ _ There _ you are,” she says, leaning up, kissing his nose, squeezing his fingers, before she settles down over his hips again and rubs herself on his sensitive cock until he gets the hint and reaches to help her along with his fingers. “Don’t worry, don’t worry, Illya. Let go.”

“Fuck, fuck,” he says, over-sensitive (but not  _ uninterested _ in spite of this) and he remembers what he was here for, and that's to get his hands on Gaby. 

He tries to push her up, to overturn their positions, but she won't yield, so he's forced to take her in hand where he is, and it's not his usual angle but it's not a bad one. He uses some of his own come to slick the way, marking her in his own way. And, oh, she's beautiful and powerful and—so small—he wonders how big her dick would be if she were as tall as him, and the thought makes him grin and blush. Watching her get lost in the sensations, seeing what he can do for her, what he can make her feel, is life-changing. 

Illya wonders not just  _ if  _ he is gay, but how gay he is, if how far gone he is just giving Gaby a hand job while soaked in his own come is any indication.

She rocks her hips into it, the motion surging through both their bodies in a way that seems to remind them both that she’s an alpha, that she won’t let it be forgotten. She’s not in this to forget, but because they  _ are _ both alphas, and she doesn’t care what’s gay or frowned upon, just what she wants. Illya’s big, rough, calloused palm around her sensitive cock, his sturdy hips under hers, his brilliant eyes burning into hers.

Leaning down to kiss him as she comes undone, she pours the sound into his mouth; a low purr that’s half growl, and then they’re  _ both _ a mess, undone together on the floor, with Gaby tucked against Illya’s solid chest and her arms looped around his neck, loosely as she lets the afterglow ebb away slowly. 

When her eyes focus again, she reaches out and retrieves the black king off the floor, and displays it for him, smiling.  _ Checkmate. _

Illya returns the smile, feeling a strange safety in how they’re lying together in the wreckage of their little flat, clothes askew and come  _ everywhere _ . He feels like he has taken care of Gaby and—this must be what omegas feel—that he was and would be taken care of by her. It’s comfortable, if strange. He threads his fingers through her hair, baby-fine, but a lot of it. She feels tiny in his arms again, even if she feels like she is cradling  _ him _ —a strange blend of impressions.  

“You never expressed interest before,” Illya said, and at how her features sharpen, he quickly adds, “Chess. I mean in chess.” 

_ But in me, too. Or was I just unable to see it? _ Illya hands her the queen, the most powerful piece on the board.

“These don’t match,” she realizes, holding the pieces side by side. At Illya’s drawing breath to explain she gives him a sharp look, and corrects. “They’re not from the same set.”

Illya stares at the pieces. “That's okay, isn't it?” 

“That’s alright, they can still make a game of it,” she assures him. “I think a little mis-matching is part of the charm around here.”

Finally she sits up, done with being sticky. Her dress is sodden and sticks to her body, and she wobbles on her heels before she reaches down to help Illya up, only then realizing she can hear the soft sound of old blues on the radio in Napoleon’s room, and quirking a smile up at him, now that the world was restored to its proper height.

“We’d better clean up,” she says.

Illya nods, and turns away to smile at Napoleon—could he be any more American than by playing blues to give them privacy?—and tugs his trousers up, and rights a chair. He wipes a hand through the mess on his belly—in the moment, he realized, he could almost find himself wanting to lick it up, but now...

When she turns to the bathroom, and he stays, she tilts her head at him, and then reaches out, her hand a command and an offer both. “Illya, come wash my hair?”

Illya follows, and doesn't care if it's an order or an invitation. He just nods and goes with her. 


	3. Chapter 3

When the bath is drawn—their one luxury in this flat that Napoleon seems to appreciate being an old, deep, spacious claw-foot tub that Gaby and Illya fit easily into—and full of bubbles and their bodies, both relaxed and easy, that’s when Napoleon appears again, drifting into their awareness through the door that Gaby deliberately left cracked partway.

He offers no crude comment on the activities he’s just politely ignored, but does lean in the doorway, returned to absolute composure in dress and hair, and offers them both a cigarette from a silver case that doesn’t have his initials on it. 

“Sorry I pushed you, Peril,” Napoleon says, smooth, as if he’s not the odd man out in the room. He does his best not to project any part of him that feels it. 

Illya wants to be embarrassed at the intrusion, but settles for wrapping an arm around Gaby’s chest for modesty and accepting the cigarette in the other hand. “You mean you didn’t actually plan to go out and blow our cover, Cowboy?” 

Napoleon gives a microscopic shake of his head, tucking the case out of sight.

“Of course he didn’t,” Gaby says, settling back into Illya’s strong arms. “Thank you, Napoleon.” 

Gaby is still staring at him as she takes a pull on the cigarette. “Is your offer still open?” 

Napoleon actually has to crunch that over in his thoughts. Ostensibly, it’s what he came to discuss, but he hadn’t expected them to come around to it without getting at least a conversational steer in the right direction. Then again, Gaby has the best sense he’s ever seen in an alpha. Of course she’d know what they need, as a team.

“It hardly makes sense that it wouldn’t be,” Napoleon says, with a faint smile. “It will be better for all of us, and I like to think I’ve worked so hard on my loose reputation for a reason. Don’t worry, no one will question you so long as I’m part of the picture. We’ll be a little careful, that’s all.”

He tips his head, and then turns his gaze to Illya, as if waiting for his input on the offer. 

Illya has let his cigarette burn down, deep in thought. Napoleon, seeing what he’s about to do, hands him an ashtray. He nods thanks. “Would you be Gaby’s omega, or mine?” 

“Both,” Gaby said. “Whoever’s most convenient. And if Waverly or someone should discover it’s  _ both _ , well, that’s still less of a scandal.” 

Illya chuckled. “We will have to pretend to be appalled that he would be unfaithful.”  

He laughs a little  _ too  _ hard at that. 

“I’ve never been faithful a day in my life,” Napoleon answers, and if it sounds a little forced into levity, well, surely all that will drown under Illya’s amusement. Napoleon wrinkles his nose at him, but it’s not a lasting expression.

“ _ You _ can pretend,” Gaby says, primly, reaching up to rub her agile fingertips under Illya’s chin as if she were soothing a cat. “I like to think I would know about Napoleon’s many vices.”

Illya hums into the touch, a low sound that goes through his chest to her.

“It’s not that I can’t say no,” Napoleon lets them both slide under his skin like very sharp knives, but he doesn’t watch them together, not in any way that’s more than polite, because he has never been jealous before. He’s not about to start now. “It’s just that I find no point in doing so.”

“You  _ are _ careful about…” Gaby wonders, her tone a little lighter, but Napoleon’s answering look is sharp.

“I took a trip to Japan about twenty years ago,” Napoleon assures her. “There’s a doctor there I still send a card to once a year. None of us have to worry about it, but if you’d like to see the two little scars on my back as proof…”

He gives her a rakish wink, and carries himself away again, happy to exit on the suggestive upstroke of the conversation. 

Illya frowns, like the conversation has gotten a little too personal—maybe just an American thing—but then Napoleon is gone. He actually thought Napoleon is much younger, from the way he acts, than he must be. But he supposes he would have done the same. 

Alone in the bath with Gaby, now, Illya leans forward and kisses her shoulder. He puts the cigarette out in the ashtray half-finished and drops both hands into the water. “Is this what you want?” 

She tilts her head at Illya, leaning back against his big body and feeling how they fit together. As if she was deciding in that instant. From the kitchen, the sounds of cooking begin to emerge, followed by the rich smells that always accompany Napoleon’s work. Her mouth waters a little, and she nods.

“You,” she decides. “I want you. And maybe him, also. What do  _ you _ want, Illya?”

Illya shakes his head at first.  _ Want  _ sounds so capitalist, so selfish, so American, and it frustrates him that he  _ wants _ to have fallen in love with a nice Russian omega and wants to have not cared enough about Napoleon to have agreed to not kill him and burn the tapes his government wanted, he wants to not care about this darling chop-shop girl in his arms. 

But he does. So he huffs, dealing with the smaller issue first. “You actually want Napoleon, too?” 

For a communist, he’s apparently not good at sharing. 

Gaby rolls her eyes up at him, turning around in his arms to settle front-to-front against his chest, leaning up to kiss him on his overthinking mouth, intrigued by his question. “I think Napoleon works very hard on being wanted by everyone he meets, don’t you?”

Illya has to agree with that, and it’s something of a relief. 

‘Too’ is a tricky word in this instance; it could mean as well as wanting Illya, it could mean Illya also had his eyes on the omega. She likes the puzzle of this, and taps her fingers lightly on Illya’s chest. “I can abstain if  _ you _ can abstain. Can you? Or should we work this all out like adults.”

“Napoleon is...probably spying on us,” Illya huffs, drawing back from a full confession. But he wraps his arms around Gaby. “If you want him, it’s not my place to tell you what to do. That’s how this fight started, no?” 

Illya shrugs and slides lower in the water, so she doesn’t have to bend her back like she is. 

“I—have feelings for you, Gaby. But we have to—if my government found out, I would be…” He sighs. “They would have me arrested. Perhaps assassinated, I’ve become too much trouble already. Alpha-alpha relationships are still a crime in U.K., as well, so Waverly won’t be friendly, if he found out. Not to mention, working with romantic partner is not…never good idea. Makes you sloppy.” 

Illya tries to sit up, water sloshing. “Maybe this is not good idea.” 

Gaby’s expression goes hard again, but she doesn’t let Illya up, gripping the side of the tub. “It’s already done. Besides, for all your trouble, you’re effective. I can take care of myself, too, so you shouldn’t have to worry about protecting me.”

“No, I know you can, I...” He gives up, mind playing scenario after scenario of any  enemy—or even, possibly, his own people—using her against him. What would he do to keep her safe, whether or not they acted on their feelings for each other? He had already gone against his government to protect  _ Napoleon _ —and  _ he’s  _ capable, too—how much more would he do for her?

When she sees she’s not going to get any further with him tonight, she gets up, pulling down one of the plush, massive towels Napoleon had produced from his suitcase after pronouncing the ones the safehouse had been equipped with to be ‘barbaric rags,’ and wrapping it around herself. “But if I know you at all, Illya Kuryakin, I know you’ll worry about it anyway, no matter what we decide.”

She leans over, kisses his forehead, and goes to get dressed to she can join Napoleon for lunch. 

Illya stares after her, his heart clenching and his thoughts dark. He takes the half-smoked cigarette from the ashtray and relights it, lets it calm his nerves, however artificially.

Instead of facing either of them, he lets Gaby and Napoleon enjoy lunch without him while he puts the living room back together. He takes the chess set (missing one piece he can’t find) and retreats to his bedroom. 


	4. Chapter 4

Later, Napoleon brings him a warm sandwich, crusted deeply brown with butter and pan fried; dripping pale cheese and jelly around ham and turkey and smelling like the deepest, most decadent parts of home. In the doorway, he holds the plate like a peace offering, still wearing his ridiculous blue-check apron to protect the front of his suit, sleeves rolled to his elbows. Vulnerable.

“I repaired your rook,” Napoleon tells him. “It’s not quite the same, but I did my best.”

He offers the piece, which looks like the crenellated crown piece had snapped off of it, but been restored by a patient, steady hand and the chipped wood restored to black with a little shoe polish and some patience. He offers it to Illya, who is playing himself again.

Illya is surprised to see Napoleon there, and even more surprised by the offerings, after how he had treated him. Napoleon is a picture of domesticity, which belies how dangerous—how _not_ -omega—he can also be, and Illya doesn’t understand _how_ he can be so attracted to him like this, and to Gaby at her fiercest. It’s like his sexuality is defined by people instead of genders.

(And what’s wrong with that?)  

He takes the rook first, and sandwich second.

“Thank you,” he says, awkwardly. It encompasses everything, and not enough.

The pause between them lingers. He doesn’t want to show weakness in front of an omega, but maybe in front of _Napoleon_ it’s okay. Eventually he offers, “I am not...good at this.”

“No,” Napoleon agrees, keeping his tone and body language casual, speaking low like a secret between them. “You’re not. You’re good at other things. I hate to admit it, but not everyone _wants_ all polish and perfection.”

He crosses his arms casually over his chest, leaning in the doorway, comfortable. “Lucky for you, I suppose. Are you alright?”

Illya looks up, perplexed by the question, like he’s never been asked it before, or like he thinks the question is absurd.

“Are _you_ alright?” he counters. “Is Gaby alright?”

Maybe if Gaby had come to her senses, that would solve this whole mess.

“So you’re over your earlier fear?”  Napoleon wonders, idly. “I’m fine, There’s a bruise just here, but I’ve had worse.”

Napoleon gestured vaguely in the direction of his back, where he’d taken the worst of the scuffle earlier.

Instead of muttering that Napoleon had thin skin, or something else defensive and more in-character, Illya finds himself saying, “Sorry.”

“Gaby’s a tough girl, too. Smart. You’re lucky to have each other. You do have each other, don’t you?”

“I don’t…” Illya begins, but doesn’t finish. “It is not safe.”

He grimaces, something of his alpha backbone coming back. Nothing is safe in their line of employ. “It is not _wise_.”

“No, but you can’t live on only wise decisions,” Napoleon says, amused. He sighs, a softer sound, and the intensity of his gaze softening some as he approaches something genuine. “Or safe ones.”

Illya worries the inside of his lip, nodding. But if that’s true, then why is it that the only place he feels _safe_ is with both of them?

Napoleon rolls his shoulder up in a shrug. “No matter what, don’t isolate yourself, Peril. We’re a team now.”

“Right.” Illya nods. “Team.”

The silence stretches again, and Napoleon shifts like he’s about to leave when Illya, still holding sandwich and rook, blurts out, “Play a round with me?”

“Absolutely,” Napoleon agrees, reaching up to pull the loop of the apron over his head, with a practiced flip, and then a tug undoes the tie that holds it to his waist. He places it over the back of the chair at the tiny office desk, and with his fingers on the buttons of his own waistcoat, undoing them in order to sit, he reminds, “You _do_  remember I’m miserable at it, don’t you?”

“Practice will make you better.”

He sits anyway, catty-corner on Illya’s perfectly made bed where the opposite end of the chessboard is, a bit like sitting side-saddle on a horse, but comfortable enough as Illya resets the pieces.

“Why do you play so much? I saw reference to a chess title in your file,” Napoleon takes the black side, giving Illya the first move. “I didn’t think anyone in the modern world still had chess titles.”

Illya glares. He’s never sure when Napoleon is making fun of him—or if this is just how he talks—or if he is always making fun of him. “You win, maybe I answer.”

He turns up the corner of his mouth at Napoleon, almost a smile.

Napoleon wets his lower lip, an anticipatory expression that vanishes quickly when he realizes that the challenge is very likely beyond his scope. He arches his eyebrows, smiling back, turning on his best alluring charm. “Can I cheat?”

“You’re _asking_?” Illya laughs. “You mean sleight of hand? Won’t work on me. I memorize the board. Have—five or six contingencies.”

He lets Napoleon move first. “How do you know about my chess titles?”

“I memorized your file,” Napoleon answers, with a wink. If he can just keep Illya’s attention on him, maybe his sleight of hand has a chance. He only glances at the board before he makes his own opening move. “I have…five or six ideas about what parts of it are real and what’s carefully fed into the system. For example, there’s no direct mention of the fact you’re an alpha…”

If looks could kill, Illya’s would certainly mess up someone’s face.

“You want to see me?” Then he makes a face. “No, you probably do. Didn’t see enough earlier today?”

“As if there was any question after I got my first good whiff of you,” Napoleon reminds.

Illya sighs as he glances down at the board. “You know, in Russia we usually only get _one_ move per turn.”

“You went first, I had to catch up,” Napoleon suggests, easing a little closer over the board, dropping his shoulder in a demure way.

No matter, when Napoleon doesn't know what he's doing. Illya considers the board, and moves boldly. He'll bait Napoleon, like Napoleon is doing to him. He's not a good conversationalist, and he wishes Napoleon would say something. Maybe do all the talking. He was good at that, wasn't he?

“My father was all about football,” Napoleon picks up the thread of the conversation as if reading Illya’s wish, seeming to give details away for free, easy and comfortable. “So that was where I, a model son despite my inborn flaws, focused my attention. It wasn’t all bad. Girls in cheerleading outfits, boys in tight pants…”

He could almost _sense_ that Illya was leading him on, but in a way, Napoleon doesn’t mind that. He likes it less than when Illya was throwing him around.

“I got good at it. So good that they didn’t ask very many questions when I enlisted,” Napoleon continues, his easy tone riding up as Illya takes one of his pieces. “My chess, however, suffered for it.”

Ilya huffed a rare laugh. “So you are saying you would beat up people like me in your high school. Perhaps stole my homework. I have seen the films like this.”

It was an amusing thought, that Napoleon could have beaten him up at _any_ point in their lives.

“Like _you_ , no,” Napoleon carefully extricated himself from a corner on the chessboard, prolonging his agony. “Unless you were wearing rival team colors, anyway. I found it a little more lucrative to have friends across the board. I never wrote my own book reports.”

He took one of Illya’s knights, and found himself a little proud at least of that accomplishment. “Besides, I find that bullies never get asked to prom.”

If Illya is surprised to learn how someone so well-read had cheated his way through school, he doesn't show it. And if he lets Napoleon take his knight, it's only so he can demolish his rook—the one that Napoleon had fixed for him. It also puts him in a place where his Queened pawn will take a bishop or a pawn next turn, no matter how Napoleon squirms.

“But you did.” Illya knew enough about prom from cinema—part of his KGB education included plenty of American films. Know thy enemy, or something—to know that it was a situation Napoleon would thrive in and he would be uncomfortable.

“I did,” Naploeon agrees, taking a very small pleasure in letting the conversation about that particular subject end on a point of interest, but venturing no further information on it. He can see the danger his pieces are in, but he’s never been much good at risk management. His pawn is in position to take another of Illya’s pieces, but the bishop has far more freedom. He presses the side of his thumb to his mouth, thinking, his one concession to anything less than perfect composure.

Then he looks up, tries to measure Illya’s face, what _his_ response is to all this. He’s good at cards, perhaps Napoleon can treat it that way. In the end, he moves the pawn and takes one of Illya’s own pawns with it, and lets Illya have his bishop.

Well, Cowboy is just giving it to him now, Illya thinks as he takes the bishop and begins formulating a plot to catch his queen. “If you're trying to read my tells, it won't work, Cowboy. ‘He's playing into my hands’ won't give you ‘knight to E5.’”

Illya frowns, feeling caught out.

“Which is only one of several possible moves I could make,” he adds hastily. Maybe it's better if he just doesn't talk.

“I’m curious,” Napoleon says, looking down at the board—and at Illya’s hands folded against his thighs. Very clever hands. Very expressive. For now, they’re still. “If you only apply your philosophy of five possibilities to chess, or is it in everything you do? For example, what are your five possibilities for today?”

He’s looking intently at E5, at the pieces surrounding it, and then he starts to see the board more as a whole. Napoleon’s still no master of strategy when it comes to chess. He prefers cards; games as much about the people you’re facing, where you hold secrets, rather than everything being so out in the open. Suddenly, after playing conservatively, Napoleon shifts his queen into play, jumping the game ahead with the risky move, but he takes Illya’s other knight that way, and leaves his queen safe for the moment.

The move surprises Illya, and he’s not shy about showing it. He is shy about answering Napoleon’s question, however, taking so long to plan his move that he doesn’t answer right away. Maybe at first he doesn’t plan to, but plotting out his love life like a chess game makes it seem a little more manageable.

“One. Beat you quickly and kick you out of my room. Stay in here all day,” Illya says, with something like a wry smile. “Best option.”

“Obviously,” Napoleon answers, his tone all wry humor, a glance up from the board to Illya’s face to answer his small smile with one of Napoleon’s own, a reserved expression.

“Two, beat you, eat sandwich—” and here Illya winces, “apologize to Gaby.” (Though he’s not really sure what for.) “She loses all respect for me as man and alpha, relationship over, problem solved, back to work.”

“Hmm,” Napoleon says, seriously doubting that an apology would make Illya lose standing in Gaby’s eyes, unless he was intending to frame their earlier encounter as a mistake, in which case yes, maybe all of that outcome was possible.

He finally makes his move, answering boldness with even more daring. “Three. Knock chess board out of the way, kiss you, to see if it is at all convincing.”

Illya crosses his arms and settles back.  

Napoleon _won’t_ be baited like this, he _refuses_ . Except that when he looks up, Illya looks like he _knows_ that it certainly was a possibility. That Napoleon would let Illya foxtrot all over him and enjoy every second of it, and it feels too uncomfortably close to the truth. He shifts his queen again, forward, aggressive, using the time to compose himself, to slow his heart rate to normal, to find something flippant to answer with so he can pretend to be as unaffected by that as he should be. It puts him in position to threaten Illya’s forged queen, if not his real one.

“Why does only one of those three options include eating the food I made for you?” Napoleon manages, in good humor. He looks up, wry, soft-eyed, as if that was the only question he really wanted to ask.

“Good question.” Illya glances between Napoleon and the sandwich, and takes it up in one hand to take a bite. The flavors are—exciting, and the effect is delicious, if unnecessarily decadent. He nips Napoleon’s attempt to threaten his queened pawn in the bud, and says, grateful, “It’s a good sandwich. Now in all the plans.”

“As it should be,” Napoleon agrees; the praise is sparse, but he sees Illya go back for it, and counts that as a victory, even if his chess moves had been thwarted.

Illya hums thoughtfully, and chews. “Can combine several options. Ask Gaby to share bed. Get five years in gulag for fucking alpha, and spend the rest of my life in Siberia for fucking British spy. Ask _you_ to share bed. Straight to Siberia for fucking American.”

“Peril, you’re the best man the KGB can field,” Napoleon reminds, now somewhat at a loss for what his next chess move should be. The board’s a mess for both of them, but the minefield is weighted in Illya’s favor. “If the other members wanted to come after you; if they even found out, I’d feel sorry for them.”

Illya appreciates the compliment—taking it as that and not an insult to his entire country—but even _he_ can’t fight a sniper’s bullet.

He doesn’t bother to mention that they’d have to fight their way through Gaby and Napoleon both to make it happen. Maybe that’s part of what Illya’s afraid of. It’s not illogical. “So, you ask no one to share your bed, and wait to explode from frustration, is that it? Are you sure you didn’t sign on to become a nun instead of a spy?”

He frowns at Napoleon’s comment: his eyes revealing for a moment the gaping ache of forever-alone he is, deep down, so afraid of.

“Will not explode.” Then he remembers the living room. “Again.”

He’s so lost in the chess board that he fails to notice Gaby standing at the door, watching them, and he doesn’t see her until he drags his King into the fray, because he is safer in attack than in defense right now.

“What if we were all in that amount of danger every day anyway?” Napoleon wonders; he’s aware of Gaby’s presence, but she’s just barely in his field of vision, her stillness caught in the corner of his eye. He doesn’t give her away, instead easing one of his two remaining pawns out into the open to try and tempt one of Illya’s queens into range for a strike. “If it made no difference to our overall life expectancy; which as spies for any government you know and I know is not always a lengthy thing—would you allow it then?”

Illya doesn’t take his bait on the board, leaving Napoleon reaching in quickly enough to brush Illya’s hand after his move, nudging the pawn forward further still into an area where it’s threatened from all sides but the back.

“Stop this,” Illya snaps, swatting at Napoleon’s hand, “you move too fast, no respect for the game. Of course I would allow it, then!”

“Hmm,” Napoleon says, thoughtful, but that’s all.

Illya slams his queened pawn down right next to Napoleon’s trapped king. “Check. Probably mate.”

It’s an accident, he tells himself, that ‘probably mate’ _could_ sound like an invitation.

Napoleon withdraws his hands into his own lap, tilting his chin up. Over Illya’s agitated shoulder, he makes eye contact with Gaby, and the corner of her mouth tilts up as she pads in, silent and careful. She picks up Napoleon’s queen and moves her just a little, just enough to terminally threaten Illya’s own king.

Napoleon smiles at her beatifically, and then holds up his hands to let the move stand, leaning back from the board.

“Check,” he repeats. “ _Definitely_ mate.”

For once, Illya is too startled to react with his usual violence—Gaby and Napoleon both note the effect the game has had on him, and log it away for future use—and he sits and stares, sandwich half-eaten in his hand, going back through the moves to make sure Napoleon hasn’t cheated again, and _he hasn’t._

Gaby made a fair move.

He doesn’t—can’t—look at her as he plucks up his king and hands it over.

She smiles and kisses the top of his head. Illya’s eyes track to the window to make sure the blinds are closed, and they are, but by then it’s too late to enjoy the kiss. He can’t look at Napoleon or Gaby yet.

“I’ll give you a chance to win this back if you want to join me in the sitting room,” Gaby says, dangling the king in front of Illya’s nose. Then she’s gone.

“You’ll win next time,” Napoleon predicts, with a warm-eyed smile. “She made a move I wasn’t considering.”

He unfolds himself off of Illya’s bed with a slow, motion, buttoning his waistcoat back up as he stands, an absent gesture to put himself back in order, and he recovers his earlier discarded apron casually, leaving Illya to gather the board back together. Their lives are about to resume, he’s sure. Napoleon feels better, anyway. The house feels calmer.

A little good food and a little fun always set things to rights, eventually.

“Thank you for the victory,” he tells Gaby, as he settles in the sitting room—now slightly diminished of furniture, but  her efforts have rendered it plenty hospitable again. He only pauses to shift the settee just _so_.

She leans up to kiss Napoleon’s cheek in a move that surprises and pleases him. “We should all win now and again.”

Illya has followed them quickly—he must have scrambled to collect all the pieces and the board and his plate—and catches the kiss. It...doesn’t make him jealous, or angry. Perhaps _nervous_ , like he apparently always is, knowing this line of work is dangerous and that the people he loves are in it, too.

He doesn’t say anything, but takes a place on the couch and sets up the board on the low table—now, much lower—in front of it. He’s not warm, but he’s not hostile either, and anyway, he’s here with them. Gaby thinks she might almost describe him as docile, judging by how he is avoiding her gaze and even Napoleon’s, and she knows she’ll have to tread carefully to keep him that way.

“Anything good on TV, Napoleon?” she says, by way of asking him to turn it on.

“Only if you speak Turkish, I imagine,” Napoleon says, but he obliges her anyway, and manages to find some recognizable faces on the television, old episodes of _I Love Lucy_ in black and white and dubbed into Turkish, and he settles in, as comfortable and domestic as they probably ever will be together.


	5. Chapter 5

The evening passes, Napoleon checking twice on their messages and discovering one point of interest, but they’ll have to investigate in the morning. Napoleon cooks, and it’s Illya’s turn to do the dishes (though he thinks Gaby’s rinsing of three crumby plates doesn’t quite compare to the pots and pans that cleaning up after Napoleon’s dinner event entails). Near nine, Napoleon ventures away to sleep, leaving Gaby and Illya alone, but she makes no effort to press him on anything, and neither does he ask. The only change is that after the lights have gone out and the flat is dark, Gaby joins him in his bed and curls against him, insistent.

“ _Gaby_ ,” Illya says, sounding annoyed, but a hundred protests die on his lips one by one until all that’s left is “Are you sure?”

He wraps an arm around behind her: her pajamas are silk, soft under his hands, like her skin where the shirt rides up in the back. He’s positive she’s not wearing underwear, and it makes him flush.

She presses back against him until their bodies fit together just _so._ Nesting down and comfortable. There’s no place she’d rather be, she thinks. She reaches up, rubs her fingers under Illya’s chin, and commands, “Go to sleep, Illya.”

Gaby seems to think that is that, because she obeys her own command without further hesitation.

It annoys Illya how much he likes that chin thing. It annoys him how he wraps his arms around her tiny body so easily. It annoys him how warm she is, how warm she always is, and how soothing it is, like when his mother would tuck a hot water bottle under his sheets in the coldest winters.

It annoys him, also—though not until morning—how easily he falls asleep at her command.

...

Things pick up, after that. The lead pans out into a genuine event; with a good car chase and a fist fight and all that. Napoleon leaves them for an evening to ply his trade and play his games and returns in the early morning reeking of foreign alpha and practically glowing underneath all his carefully assembled looks, and passes over a little black book in handwriting that isn’t his and that he offers no other explanation for.

And in the evenings, when the lights are off, Gaby crawls into Illya’s bed, because she knows he has too much pride to come to hers. If the lights turn off early in the evening after the car chase—Illya had overturned another car in spectacular fashion, and it was amazing that they’d all walked away but they had—well, they have the excuse of being tired. Bruised some.

Gaby does not curl up meekly with Illya this time, instead crushing herself against him in her silk nightgown and pulling with her hands at his neck until their mouths meet.

Illya grunts at the treatment—his neck is sore from the crash, though he doesn’t admit it—and anyway, her urgent, demanding kisses push that to the back of his mind. She has a cut on her knuckles that he avoids, but her lips find the cut on his lip unerringly, and they taste tangy blood in the kiss.

But Illya is not shy this time. He slides her pajamas off her slim hips, squeezes her ass once, and then reaches between her legs to grip her cock. She gasps once, and he flips them, tossing her on her back so he can unbutton her shirt while he kisses her.

She hoists his shirt off over his head in response; Illya wasn’t much for pajamas but he wore at least an undershirt to bed. She’s faster than he is at getting him undressed and throws him over, pinning him down in return to gasp into his mouth, getting her hand on his cock in return, gathering them both together so she can thrust her hips and they can slide together, rough and fast.

Feeling every bruise on her body just makes her feel alive, deepens her desire to cement her connection to here and now, to anchor Illya down and remind him _he’s_ alive, and hotblooded.

“Gab-fuck,” Illya says, trying to overturn her, but giving up since she has the situation well in hand. He doesn’t give up control easily, but for Gaby—

He gasps into her mouth, and bites her lip in retaliation, bites all down her neck and jaw, possessive and hungry himself, gripping a handful of her hair. He helps her stroke them together, reaches lower to squeeze her knot, and then lower to feel how wet she is. Oh, how he wants to sink into that wet heat, not quite dripping but otherwise like an omega. _Close enough_.

“Illya,” she groans in answer, rocking her hips against him, shifting her hips and gathering the first streams of precum onto her fingers, slicking them together before she reaches down, too, easing them against his entrance and rubbing more insistent circles this time, still stroking his cock. “I want you.”

She knows their bodies aren’t as compatible as they could be, but with work they could make it happen. Or they could, but Illya keeps getting his hands in her way. She takes his wrists, grinding their hips together and looking him intensely in the eyes to make the instruction clear when she pins them over his head.

“Uhh—” Illya tries, cheeks going pink as he startles, tries to squirm out from under her, to say with his hands _No, I fuck you_ so he doesn’t have to say it aloud. It seems crass. But at least she’s got a _hole_ there. That’s just biology.

When she gets his wrists in a pin— _How? She has such small hands!—_ he can feel his stomach give a nervous flip that he’s sure means he is interested, and his cock definitely leaks for it. But his mind won’t listen to his body—

“Nnuhh—no, wait,” he insists, pulling back from the kiss, “Am I not going to top?”

Gaby actually draws back, tilting her head at him, sitting up straight and putting her hands in her lap to look at him. “Why? Because you’re taller?”

“No,” Illya says, though he thinks, _Yes, why not?_

She can see that he really expects to from his answering expression and her own goes cold as she sinks her weight down, looking directly at him. “Do you think I can’t, because I’m a woman?”

“No!” Illya says, getting up on his elbows. They’re both hard, and it would be just like a pair of alphas to stand there arguing, literally with their dicks out. “ _I_ can’t bottom, because I’m a man! You at least have more or less the right equipment!”

She snarls at him, definitely a threat. “Napoleon’s a man; you would ask _him_ to bottom.”

“Of course I would—and anyway I don’t mean—I mean who fucks who!” Illya snaps, though of course the point is somewhat moot. Neither of them is an omega, which is the point.

Gaby tilts her chin up, showing her teeth. “My ‘equipment’ is no more right than yours.”

Her blood is boiling now, and she knows she should retreat with grace, but that’s never been Gaby’s specialty. “I’m still an Alpha, just like you. You think without asking my permission you’re going to get me to roll over?”

Gaby’s anger is actually terrible to behold, and Illya feels himself hunching his shoulders, maybe to make himself as small as he feels. But he’s not scared enough to let it go, either. “No, I just mean—what if I asked? Do you want me to ask?”

He had honestly never even considered Gaby fucking _him_. The thought disturbs him.

She looks down at him with her eyes burning, trying to measure him. Of course she knows they should talk it out, should come to some solution like reasonable adults but her hormones have gone wild and she’s had a long day, and he’s being so— _so!_

“Will you think less of me?” She asks, her tone very clipped and cold. “If I let you? You seem to think it would lessen _you_.”

“No! That is not—Gaby!” Illya cries, frustrated into speaking his mind. Not that he’s really thought about this. That he loved her did not necessarily mean he thought of the mechanics of how they would have sex—except he clearly had pre-formed notions of how it should _not_ go. “Please, let us just talk about—”

Gaby gets her hand on his cock again, sensing now how he was backtracking, feeling the way his bravado was crumbling and she had a feeling he would trip over his own stubbornness until he sank in it. She leaned down, calming herself, some, and kissed his mouth, and after a moment they both felt less angry, a little more soft.

“You should trust me,” she says, looking Illya in the eyes, and this time its without anger. “And I will trust you. Stop me if we get somewhere you _really_ don’t want to be, yes?”

Illya’s eyes are locked by hers, and he swallows, throat bobbing. He nods. “I do trust you.”

When she’s sure he’s understood she shoves him up the bed a little, settling between his legs this time instead of over them, her hand tight over his knot as she leans down to take him into her mouth again; it had been easier for him the first time with that distraction, and she’s sure now that he at least can’t protest that.

Now Illya feels a complete mess, because the second she slides off him and gets her mouth around his cock it feels all wrong, like she shouldn’t be doing that for him, and he misses her weight (surprisingly heavy, for her size) resting on him and holding him to the bed. He feels like he might float away otherwise.

But he can’t deny how good that feels, either, and he won’t dare protest. Illya throws his head back and groans.

She can feel the way his body is twisting up for it, and Gaby enjoys every noise she wrenches out of him, though somewhere in the back of her thoughts she registers faint surprise that she can’t hear music from elsewhere by now. She hardly minds; Illya makes music enough as she licks him wet, and then hoists his hips up to ease down further, mouthing over and past his balls, wondering if it would be easier for him if it wasn’t her hands.

Wetter, anyway. She doesn’t have a lot of experience as to what to expect with someone who doesn’t generate their own lubrication, but she refuses to admit he’d had any sort of point about equipment or anatomy. Instead, she licks him open until he’s gasping with it, and then nips along his inner thigh to distract him when her fingers start to push against him again, this time slicked up with her own emissions, working in slow circles until he relaxed with her mouth on his cock again, showing him there was nothing to worry about. That she wouldn’t hurt him, just like she knows he wouldn’t hurt her.

“ _Gaby_ ,” he moans, scandalized through the haze of lust, but fuck, her tongue is wicked, and wet, and he shivers, his breath coming in starts and stops, his stomach and thigh muscles jumping. Her fingers inside him feel stranger, almost hurt, but he’s no stranger to pain, certainly not now. She doesn’t ask permission, but neither does he tell her to stop.

She wants to praise how good he’s doing, but doubts he’d appreciate it—yet, anyway. Instead she teases the head of his cock with her mouth, curls her fingers inside of him slowly, carefully, only pushing deeper when she can feel his body relax and welcome her. But the angle isn’t quite right for her tastes.

When she pushes his thighs up to his chest, he lets her, and when she shoves a pillow under his hips, he lets her do that, too, and for lack of anything better to do with his hands, he fists them into the pillow above his head, and when he realizes that that’s where she had placed his hands before, he just resigns himself to how gone he is.

Finally, a little frustrated with how little she’s been able to ease their way with just what they’re dripping in anticipation, Gaby leans over him, kisses his chest with two fingers still sunk into him, and reaches for his bedside drawer, rudely scuffling her other hand through the contents until she finds something that will serve her purpose. Hand lotion isn’t ideal, and while she’s absolutely sure she’d have found what she needed in _Napoleon’s_ bedside, she’s not about to go knock on his door.

It’s not scented at least, so she pops the cap and goes for it, tests a little on the tip of her tongue, against the roof of her mouth, and finds no reaction, and then sets about applying it more usefully, getting him good and slick before she works a third finger in, now looking for his prostate with careful, curving fingers.

Illya is about to protest again, but then she puts it in her mouth, and he decides again—or is reminded—not to argue with her. And then she has three slim fingers inside him and she touches something inside of him, like there’s a nerve center for his knot inside his body, and he actually kicks, helplessly, and lets out the most _embarrassing_ noise, and the only thing that saves whatever is left of his alpha machismo is the fact that he rips the pillow in half behind his head as his breathy whimper tapers out to a low moan.

The tearing noise actually startles Gaby, and then she laughs, just a little, leaning up to kiss his chin, though she doesn’t pursue a kiss with him just yet. “You like that? Good, right?”

Illya doesn’t trust himself to answer, biting his lip until it bleeds again. He feels warm, like the effort it takes to—what, _stay still_?—Just lie back and _take it_?—is more effort than he ever expended fucking anyone. But she asked him a question, and he nods. He doesn’t know what to hold onto as she goes back for more.

As if to remind him, she curls her fingers again, pressing until he’s squirming and panting, and only then does she finally withdraw her fingers and start pushing her cock slowly, carefully into him. Taking her time, watching his face. The pillow makes the angle good, easy, now that they’re both slicked up.

Still, Illya is shaking, wants to protest but doesn’t—it’s too much, it’s definitely too much, three of her tiny fingers doesn’t remotely compare to the size of her huge cock—and he cries out again, a strangled sound this time that might be half her name and half every swear in every language he knows.

She rolls her hips just a little, leaning over him, watching the changes on his face, from pain blossoming into pleasure, the blue of his eyes darkened in lust. “Do you tear up the bedclothes for all the girls?”

And even like this, when he can’t possibly be embarrassed (or flattered) any further, he blushes, ghosts a smile. There are feathers everywhere.

“Gab—” he pants. “Let me—”

He braces a foot against her hip, but she knocks his legs apart and slides up closer to him. “What do you need?”

He shakes his head, like he’s very drunk and she asked him if he wanted another. He can’t even articulate any need that’s not _her_ , that’s not her cock in his ass.

Giving him a minute to start to get used to the difference, for his body to adjust, she waited and watched him try to elaborate. Then she got hold of his hips and began to move again, just a little, small thrusts until his body eased a little, until it started to welcome her motions and she could really push. She stops at her knot, knowing better than to even try; maybe someday they’d be able to do that, but their bodies aren’t omega bodies; they aren’t meant to do this without practice.

“I’ve got you,” Gaby purrs to him, getting her hand onto his cock. “You’re doing so well.”

Illya preens a little at the praise, and lets out a soft groan, though each thrust of hers is still punctuated by a small gasp from him. His feet scrabble helplessly against the sheets, and he still isn’t sure what to do with his hands: Illya is pretty flexible, but the angle is awkward and he’s terrified moving the wrong way might tear something more serious than the pillow.

“Kiss me,” he finally gets out, breathless, like her cock is pressing up against his lungs. “H-hold me down.”

Past Illya is embarrassed for himself; Present Illya is too far beyond blissed to care.

She reaches up, getting her hands on his wrists, sinking her body even lower over his so that she can press him flat against the bed and pillows under his hips with every slow thrust before she crashes their mouths together, almost biting him in her eagerness to give him what he wants, there. Then their mouths open together, and their bodies are moving in tandem and it’s _right_ , it’s just right, the two of them like this with sweat gathering in the small of Gaby’s back, and her strength against his, pinning him to the bed.

 _There it is_. Something inside Illya, whatever mental barrier that was keeping him from giving himself to this moment just crumbled, and he let out a wheezing sigh. He could let go. This was okay. He was with Gaby and she was safe and he was safe and they almost died today and they could die tomorrow but _he was here now_.

It doesn’t go fast, but slow and deep do amazing things for both of them, his body is hotter and tighter than anything she’s felt before, like it’s trying to pull her in further, to hold on, and every move generates some _response_ , until she’s lost in it, too. In him, in all of this.

“Illya, god,” she gasps, and then kisses him again.

“Gaby,” he says, leaning into the kiss, and he hooks his legs around her hips this time to drive her deeper, harder. Part of what feels good, Illya thinks, is how vulnerable and open makes him for her, and it’s wonderful and not frightening at all to let his guard down around her. “Come in me,” he begs.

She almost has to the instant he asks her to in that broken, unguarded tone, her breath hissing out of her and her grip going tight on his wrists, but she manages to hold out for two or three more quick strokes, shifting her hips to drag her cock over his prostate before her rhythm falters and fails, and she pours herself out into him, turning her head to bite his neck as her nails dig into the sides of his wrists.

Hitching his legs higher, up around her waist, Ilya leans into her, buries his face against her neck, and lets the rush of sensations—the mix of pains and pleasures—tug him over the edge, too, with little more than the faint pressure of their closeness against his knot. He comes rivers, running down his chest and belly, and gasps like he hasn’t been breathing this whole time.

Finally, her body relaxes into the haze of aftermath, and she becomes almost playfully affectionate, clearly feeling better after her orgasm by the way she shifts up and licks his mouth, kisses his nose, rubs herself on him to mix their scents up.

Illya whines, softly, nuzzling into her touches, kissing wherever he can reach without moving. He’s more than a little dazed. “Gaby. Oh, Gaby.”

She sighs out, kissing him again, soothing her fingers over the mark her teeth had left on his neck, thinking idle thoughts about turtlenecks and warm things about how much she adored him like this. “Illya, thank you. For trusting me.”

“Thank you—for not,” Illya pants, laughing a little. He’s not sure he can trust himself ever again. He twitches his fingers and she lets go of his wrists.

Kissing the crease out of his forehead between his eyebrows, she finally lifted herself up, enough to draw their bodies apart; quick, like pulling off a stuck on bandage so they both hissed but it was over quickly and she could settle in against him with her mouth closer to his so he didn’t have to bend in half to kiss her.

Illya likes this—Gaby close, and his body wrung out and sated with sex. Gaby. His alpha. He wanted to laugh at himself, but he was too tired. He turns into her, mostly to get the pillow out from under him. It’s soaked in come, so he tosses it on the floor. They’re going to run out of pillows.

Gaby chuckled after a minute, tracing her fingers over his chest, over a scrape from the crash very lightly, over a bruise on his shoulder. “We can take turns. Like the dishes. Next time,  you’re on top.”

Illya chuckles.

“I think I have—learned valuable lesson.” He gets both arms around Gaby, tugs her in close, and kisses her temple. He paws her now that he’s sleepy, bundling her up under him. “When Gabriella Teller says she wants, you give to her.”

“Mmm,” she agrees. She’s sleepy too; the bonus of being in a relationship with another alpha; no need to do too much pillow talk. She loops her arms around him and keeps him close, warm and comfortable together. “And I want you every way I can have you, Illya Kuryakin.”

She pulls the blankets up over them halfway without so much as a thought for how messy they’d be. “In the morning, you can wash my hair. We’ll have to get up early to have the bathroom to ourselves.”

Then she yawned, and settled in to sleep, body relaxed and comfortable.

“That, or we sleep _very_ late,” Illya says, idly brushing away some feathers as he curls around her and nods off almost immediately.


	6. Chapter 6

Illya and Gaby’s antics of the prior week require a careful ducking of their heads for the next several days, and if Napoleon slightly redecorates their flat in the interim, it’s more a sign of restlessness (or so he would say) than anything to do with how frequently the alphas enjoy each other’s company.

But it’s in the dead of one of these nights that Napoleon intrudes on Illya’s room, and wakes Gaby; he reeks of his own hormones as if he’d been played up, as if—well, the reasons would be obvious if he’d come in from the outside, but she’d been sure he was in and settled for the night. Rarely would he re-dress to go out again. 

“Up, back to your own bed,” he tells her, sotto voce. “I’m sorry. Trust me.”

She does, so she retrieves her nightgown, carries herself out while aware of how much the room smells like alpha and sex, and then she understands why Napoleon’s made his efforts. 

“Shove over, I need more than an edge of the bed,” he suggests to Illya, before joining the Russian and doing his best to look settled in, though he makes a face at the mess when he settles into it. 

“Cowboy!” Illya complains blurrily, reaching after Gaby. He lets Napoleon shove him over, but makes him do the work. “What’s going on? Why aren’t you wearing—?”

He freezes when he hears someone at the door, and the bath already running in the other room. 

“Sleep, Peril,” Napoleon murmurs, low and quiet, and does a pretty convincing job of it himself as the lights come on in the outer hallway and Waverly calls a cheery ‘halloo’ which is wise when walking into the safehouse of three spies unannounced. “Commit to it.”

By the time Waverly’s peering in, Napoleon’s own eyes are closed, his body relaxed as if he hadn’t moved in hours, breathing deep and even.

But Illya has lifted himself up on one elbow and is pointing his loaded Makarov at the door, his gaze hard. 

(He realizes what Napoleon is doing at the last possible second, and deciding he at least will “sell” it better this way.)

“Oh good lord,” Waverly’s proper accent cuts in and the door swings mostly closed again. “Sorry! Up on your feet, men.”

“Some warning would be nice,” Illya snapped, flicking the safety back on and setting his handgun aside before rubbing his eyes. “Get up, Cowboy.” 

He punctuates this clipped command with a kiss, though, on the back of Napoleon’s neck, and he  _ does _ smell nice. “Sounds like Gaby’s in the bath, already. Sorry.”

Napoleon pries himself out of bed in a very convincing state of bleariness, half covered in the tacky remains of the previous evening’s adventures. He stretches, retrieving his bathrobe from the floor where he’d apparently dropped it on his way in, and pulls it on, pretending to make an effort to smooth down the curls in his hair as he exits into the main room.

“Shall I make some coffee? It’s a very early visit, Waverly,” Napoleon says, his tone dry but convincingly heavy with sleep.

“No, I can’t stand that turkish stuff,” Waverly says, apparently mostly unphased. “I’ve come to tell you that your leads proved out. I’m assembling a backup team to make the arrests in the upcoming days and I thought the three of you would like to know right away.”

Napoleon sets up the percolator anyway, measuring in grounds of proper coffee he’d gotten somewhere, rather than the chicory that was popular in Turkey, but he makes no effort to correct Waverly’s earlier assumption. 

“Well, that’s excellent. Does that mean we’ll be moving on?” 

“Soon, yes, but I'll need you geared up and ready to help us apprehend a sheik or two. I'm sorry, but that's how it  _ shakes _ out,” Waverly said, barely containing himself.

No one laughed. 

“You woke us up at six in the morning for  _ that _ ?” Gaby asked, coming out of the bathroom drying her hair. She leaned against Napoleon until he gave her a small cup of coffee.

“Well, being that there’s only four hours until I need you mobile and on location, I’m afraid an early wake up was necessary,” Waverly explained, giving them his most charming grin. “Terribly sorry to interrupt—”

“Waverly,” Napoleon began, in his steadiest, most practical ‘I don’t care about the answer’ tone. “This arrangement you’ve made with our governments, how permanent is it?”

“I have no intention of breaking up a team that gets this kind of results,” Waverly assured. “UNCLE could do—will do, I think—big things for the stability of the future world. At the least, I have another assignment for you after this. Good job on that list of contacts, Solo.”

Napoleon smiles lazily at him, but there’s real pride in it. He offers a bigger cup of coffee to Illya when he’s done making himself presentable and finally appears in the living area of the flat.

That’s a relief Illya didn’t know he was waiting for. He moves to Napoleon and slings an arm around his hips, in favor of putting his arms around Gaby—but he’s glad to be staying with Napoleon still, too. “Where do we go next?” 

Waverly gives them a queer look, but it’s just as likely his British reserve is offended by this semi-public display of affection. “Madrid. You’ll be going to fashion week…” 

Napoleon perks up visibly, while both the other team members try to restrain their groans. If he’s leaning into Illya a little more than is really required for their cover, well… he’s either taking advantage of the chances he gets, or really selling it.

“Anyway, hardly any reason to concern yourselves with that at the moment,” Waverly continues. “Get your war paint on, chaps. Gaby, I’ll understand completely if you’d like to sit this out.”

She shakes her head, fiercely. “Last time I was a hostage. I’ll feel better if I get a chance to see some of the action this time.”

“Very good. I’ll have my man bring up a trunk with your kit,” Waverly says, turning as if to go, and then he hesitates, eyes landing on a new addition to the living room.

“You’d best leave  _ that  _ in the country, Solo.”

“I think the Turks would rather forget it,” Napoleon answers, slyly, pushing his coffee against his mouth so he doesn’t appear to grin too visibly. “Given that the Sultan banished the painter for adding his smallpox scars.”

“Ah, still a bit of cultural history that we should leave in place,” Waverly suggests.

“Funny to hear a brit say that,” Napoleon says. “But I take your point. I just thought the flat could use a little color.”

Illya is pinching the bridge of his nose, holding onto a sigh. 

“He’ll leave it,” Gaby promises hastily. 

“Right-oh! See you at ten-hundred!”

As the door shuts, Illya releases the sigh, and Gaby whacks Napoleon in the arm, pulling her punch, but not enough not to sting. “I thought  _ you  _ painted that!”  

“Why would I paint a poxy old sultan when I have two very excellent models right here?” Napoleon defends himself with charm, accepting the well-deserved chastisement with a brilliant smile and a half hearted rub to the stinging area. “Besides, I have to get my rocks off somehow, otherwise I’d be completely outdone by you two. And that’s my cue that the shower’s open.”

His hand lifts idly as he passes the ill-gotten painting, his eyes on the work as if making a tally;  _ I owned you _ . But instead of going out to trace reverently over the priceless paint, it settles over the back of his neck. Casually, it could be a stretch, if his palm didn’t stay cupped over where Illya’s mouth had pressed for just half a second; and then he’s gone into his methods of morning routine and the promised trunk full of tactical gear is delivered. 

“He’s wild,” Gaby observes to Illya, once they’re alone again and the pair of them are sorting gear because they both know Napoleon will take every possible second to get ready. 

“Needs taming,” Illya says, hiding a rare smile in Gaby’s shoulder as he kisses it. 

“Oh-ho, you get him in your bed for all of three minutes and you want him back?” Gaby teases. 

“I’m just saying, if he needs an outlet.” But Illya is blushing as she hits too near the mark. 

“A completely selfless offering, I’m sure,” Gaby says, reaching up to wind her hands around Illya’s neck and kiss him. “He’ll be incorrigible, you know.”

She walks Illya backward, half in a dance and half to guide him toward getting dressed.

“You’re right. Maybe it would only spoil him more.” Illya hums, letting Gaby guide him. “Maybe he’d like being chained barefoot in the kitchen…”

“Just because  _ you’d  _ like that!” Gaby laughed. 

Illya gives her a hard look, but it’s mostly playful. “Pointless. Unless you want my mother’s goulash for every meal.” 

“Ewwhhh,” Gaby breathes, but with laughter. “I’m not sure I want that for even  _ one _ meal.”

“You insulting my mother?” Illya asks, but not really wanting an answer. 

“Besides, do you really think Napoleon would give up his shoe collection? I’m not sure I should ask where he keeps getting them…” Gaby continues.

Finally, she unwinds herself from Illya and passes him his clothes; it had been easy to tell which were meant for him in the trunk. Without any hint of shame she takes up her own fatigues and begins to pull them on, though she has to disappear briefly to fetch her brassiere. Then she pauses to look up at the painting as she pulls on her shirt over it, working the buttons.

Illya watches her get dressed, openly appreciative, in his way, and when he changes clothes it happens quickly, with Gaby’s scent still all over him. He hoped no one’s nostrils got too inquisitive: but his physical bearing usually kept people at a distance. 

“I see frustration,” she says at last. “It will get worse as he goes into heat.”

“Oh, well,  _ then _ , of course,” Illya says, like it’s a done issue, and then he thinks how that sounds. “We’ll tell him ahead of time.” 

Gaby gives him a look; it’s a step back from a glare.

He thinks about this, too, and corrects, “Ask him.”  

She smiles at him then, nodding, approving. She pulls on a shoulder holster and checks her weapon, seems satisfied with its readiness, and holsters it. Only then does Napoleon finally appear, but only long enough to recover his set of fatigues; these earn a faint look of offense from him, but he puts them on anyway. For all his fussiness, he doesn’t wear cologne today; better not to give his presence away too far ahead of time. 

He fusses until it sits on him in a way he judges right, and then joins the alphas in the common room. “I don’t suppose we could all try not to get seriously injured?”

“If you’ve got my back, I’ve got yours,” Gaby assures him, with a wink. 

“No one is getting injured,” Illya says firmly, glaring at them like he can make it true. “How hard can this be?”


	7. Chapter 7

Napoleon drags Illya up off the ground when the shooting’s stopped, looping his arm over his broad shoulders as Gaby appears to steady him at the waist. “You had to tempt fate, Peril.”

It’s not bad, anyway, but the adrenaline has faded and the shock is setting in and even getting shot a little would result in some of that for anyone, no matter if they were a giant Russian with the willpower to try and stop a car with their bare hands. 

“You are alright, right?” Napoleon continues, as they make a retreat back to mission command.

“He’s okay,” Gaby assures all three of them. “A few stitches, that’s all.”

“I hope you won’t have a limp for fashion week,” Napoleon teases.

“I won't have limp  _ tomorrow _ ,” Illya grumbles, his honor insulted. The bullet is in the meat of his thigh, still, but Illya insists he can walk.

He certainly hadn't been limping going after the sheik’s bodyguards: the men who shot him didn't even have enough time to wish they hadn't as he sprinted up to where they were crouched behind a low wall, and shot them at point-blank range. He was still stalwartly ignoring the pain, but the blood loss eventually made him sloppy mowing through the ranks. 

(For starters, it wasn't actually preferred that they kill anyone.)

“They could have dodged,” Illya said in his defense while Gaby bound his thigh with her hair scarf. 

“Dodge a bullet to the head, Illya?” she snapped, making him wince at how tight she tied the tourniquet.

“I don’t think his methods were excessive,” Napoleon says. “If they wanted courtesy, they could have shown some to us in the first place.”

Gaby scoffs at the pair of them, but she still helps carry Illya back down to the base camp, where he can be seen to in an ambulance. He wasn’t the only operative who’d been shot; the bodyguards had been armed with SMGs and unrepentant about using them, as Illya had found out.

“I wouldn’t count on having a dance partner this evening,” Napoleon tells Gaby lightly, in an undertone, trying to ease all their nerves. “But he says tomorrow, so you can hold him to it.”

Illya shoots Napoleon a dark look, which turns darker when Gaby says, “Well, perhaps I'll take a new one. You offering?”

Gaby and Napoleon had similar feelings about filling in gaps in collections. 

“I’d better not,” Napoleon says, but he gives her a bright smile. “Though I guess if you just wanted to  _ dance _ …”

Gaby gives him a look that suggests she knows better, but then Illya is being fussed over by the paramedics, and they fall quiet for a while. Neither of them is allowed to ride in the back with Illya, so Napoleon takes the expedient route of stealing one of the cars parked along the side of the street after they radio to Waverly to explain their situation. The ride isn’t—quite—tense between them. 

“I hope it won’t always be like this,” Napoleon drawls, as they follow the car to a hospital where he hopes the surgeons are very capable. It’s not a big wound, but he’d seen even the little ones go bad in the war.

“What, Illya getting himself shot or you playing hard to get?” Gaby slides her gaze to Napoleon directly, while he has to glance at her out of the corner of his eye. “I’ve seen the way you look at Illya when he’s not looking, and if he weren’t so painfully stupid at some times, he would catch how you look at me. He didn’t like when you came home smelling like—”

“It’s  _ always _ going to be like that,” Napoleon interrupts, cutting a glance at her. He doesn’t raise his voice at all, doesn’t get upset. “You’re both alphas in the prime of your life, and I’m not blind. But I’m also a professional when I need to be. I won’t be kept.”

_ Not even if I would like it, _ Napoleon keeps to himself, eyes calm, expression even. Maybe a little  _ too _ readable and pleasant. “That’s how I work. If he doesn’t like it now, he’d like it even less if there was something between us.”

Finally allowing a smile, he quirked an eyebrow at Gaby, watching the lights of the city crawl over the hood of the car, light her face intermittently. They’d been tied up in this all day, and he’d almost not realized how late it had gotten. “I don’t think you’d care for it, either.”

“Not especially,” she allows, running her fingertips over his jacket, which lies in the seat between them. “But we wouldn’t  _ keep  _ you, not like—not since we…” 

Here she trails off,  _ not since we need you for other reasons, too _ . She’s been attracted to Napoleon ever since she met him (actually, when he watched Illya pull the trunk off her car and said ‘It wouldn’t be right’ to take a shot at him) (to be fair, that was about when she was first attracted to Illya, too), but she wonders when precisely it had turned from them needing him as their Beard, for lack of a better term, into them wanting him as  _ mate _ . 

“Let me play hard to get for a little while longer,” Napoleon says, with an upward curve at the corner of his mouth. “I’ve never played for keeps before. It feels like it should be…different.”

Gaby groans. “Typical omega. You know you’re a walking stereotype?” 

“Am I?” He reaches out, covers her hand with his own; square, mannish, decidedly not the typical omega and yet he’d hardly call either of them a typical alpha, either. Illya pretended to be, but it was a façade. “Besides, Illya works harder if he wants something he thinks he can’t get.”

It’s a throwaway, because they’re getting dangerously close to what’s real and true in Napoleon; that he wants to be wanted. That he’s beginning to feel his age and unattachment combining together. For now, he can still move freely, get where he wants, when he wants, and into whatever bed. The years are coming when that will change.

Gaby squeezes Napoleon’s hand, hard, a warning. “I hope you’re willing to accept the bruises from toying with him. Don’t come crying to me when he lashes out.” 

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Napoleon tells her, and it sounds like he means it. “He nearly killed me in a bathroom the first time we met properly. I don’t think my heart ever recovered.”

He never makes it easy to tell if he’s joking or in earnest, anyway. “Or maybe I just like denying myself.”

_ That _ is clearly a joke.

(And that’s how Gaby knows it’s the truest thing he’s said.)

At the hospital, she changes from tactical trousers into a skirt (much roomier). “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but he’s rather sensitive. Deep down.  _ Very  _ deep down, sometimes.” 

She turns to him. “Reminds me of you.”

Napoleon gives her a look that suggests she’s stepping closer than he’d like to the truth, but he doesn’t protest (he never protests). “Everyone’s sensitive if you dig deeply enough or apply the right pressure.”

Gaby shrugs. “Some of us you don’t even have to dig very deep.” 

She leaves the car and slams the door with more force than strictly necessary. 

He takes the time to put himself together in the men’s room, from tactical fatigues and back into all three pieces of his suit and he’s not very forthcoming about how he knew to carry it with him. He suspects all of their things minus the painting have already been cleared out of their little safehouse in Istanbul. He smells of freshly but sparsely applied cologne when he re-emerges to join Gaby in the waiting room, both of them folding into patience.

Illya emerges shortly thereafter, refusing to stay the night now that the bullet has been extracted and the wound bandaged and stitched. Napoleon isn’t surprised, but at least he agrees to use the crutches.

“We’ll mind him, doctor,” he assures the scolding physician, moving to hold the door open for his overly macho friend. 

Illya is cursing in Russian at everyone, including Napoleon. A suit they recognize as one of Waverly’s distracts the doctors and foots the bill, and Illya charges out the doors without really knowing where he’s going. 

Gaby waits until he realizes this and stalls out; he looks back to see her folding her arms with an unimpressed look on her face. 

“If you’re done showing off for your omega, maybe you’ll thank him for this lovely car he procured for you?” she says. 

Illya backs down from her glare. He looks a little pale, and like he’d rather be sitting. “Thank you, Cowboy. Ah. Where…?”   

“I’ll bring it around,” Napoleon assures him. “Don’t worry, I was very impressed by your performance. And I think, for the night, we can put up in a nice hotel. Waverly will find us when he’s ready to move us, but we’ve earned a proper sleep.”

When they’ve all climbed into the car he drives them in a very gentlemanly fashion to a very nice hotel and checks in under false credentials. They smuggle Illya up to the room, both of them steadying him until they can get him to sit and take his weight off. Only then does Napoleon seem to relax some.

“Are you confident in the job they did?” he asks Illya in all seriousness, crouching at Illya’s side now that he was seated on the couch. After a moment, he continues on in far  _ less _ seriousness. “Or do you think your life is in Peril?”

Illya groans, as much in pain as at Napoleon’s excuse for a joke, but he can’t help his grin as he puts a hand on Napoleon’s shoulder and shoves him back. But Napoleon doesn’t move, so he leaves his hand there. “I am all right, Cowboy.”

“I’m glad,” Napoleon answers, earnest for once.

Then Illya shifts, and the moment is broken. “I will just sleep here.”

Gaby rolls her eyes. “Oh, no, you won’t. But you need to eat a hearty meal and have plenty to drink.” 

“Some vodka, please, is all I want.” Illya isn’t hungry. 

“Ha. I’m not your—” Gaby starts, and winces (she  _ has  _ to stop doing that). “You’re not the boss of me, Illya. You’re getting water, and whatever we order for you off the room service. Napoleon, what should we get him?” 

Napoleon trades a look with Illya that makes a promise, and he finally gets up, giving Illya a sturdy pat on the shoulder before he goes to work the phone and call down for their supper before the kitchens close. “I think some very hearty soup will suit. Even in Russia, your mother brings you chicken soup when you’re under the weather.”

“I’m not feeling under the weather!” Illya calls after him, even though he is. Not something chicken soup will solve, however.  

Napoleon leaves the two of them together, and if Gaby puts her arms around Illya almost instantly, he still remembers her words from the car as his own encouragement. They both have room for him. Maybe he shouldn’t make them prove that they want him  _ too _ hard, but there’s something about them having to come to him.

“We’re going to have to bend him over a chair or a table,” Gaby whispers to Illya, maybe as much to make sure he’s not completely out of it as to see his reaction. 

“No,” Illya says, trying to stretch out on the too-small couch with a weary sigh. “He would like that too much.” 

Gaby groans. “You’re as bad as he is.” 

Illya pulls her into an embrace. “Well, if he wants to be chased, I’m going to need a few days.” 

Gaby smiles against his neck, where he still smells like her. “Oh, so it’s a  _ few  _ days now?” 

Illya huffs and tries to squirm away from her. 

She nuzzles closer into him, just long enough to get their scents intermingled again, and then withdraws, helping him put his feet up, though he takes up the entire couch that way. She pulls the little table closer, uncaring if she disrupts the elegant hotel room; it’s now become Illya’s recovery room so far as she’s concerned. 

Napoleon returns, tidying his cufflinks. “My Turkish is still abysmal, but I’m fairly certain I managed to convince them to bring us something nice. All in all, we had a successful day. That’s two-for-two, and at least a little less sloppy than last time. Though Peril here didn’t get to throw a motorcycle at anyone.”

Illya shakes his head. “Disappointing.” 

Gaby groans. “It was still a very long day.”

Putting himself into one of the attendant chairs, Napoleon finds this one much more obliging to his desire to relax, though his version is simply to lift one ankle onto the opposite knee, at least while he’s still in his suit, and he lets his hands hang at the rests, clearly tired. “I agree.”

Illya cranes his neck back to eye the two beds, both in the same room. “If I don’t get vodka, I get my own bed. If anyone kicks my leg in the night I might snap neck before I’m awake.” 

He raises an eyebrow at Napoleon, and grins. “After all,  _ I _ had you this morning. Gaby’s turn.” 

“What if you  _ do _ get vodka?” Napoleon wonders, as if it were only idle speculation. “And I get bourbon, and Gaby gets a nice glass of wine with her dinner? Besides, it was barely a few minutes this morning.”

“Napoleon,” Gaby scolded, not just for his liberties with ordering their dinner. 

“Of course I’ll share,” he assures her. “It would be better with all three of us in one, but with understanding for Illya’s handicap…”

“It would,” Illya agrees. “Unless I kill someone.” 

Gaby rolls her eyes. “You won’t kill anyone.” 

“I might,” Illya insists, almost petulant. He looks mostly sleepy, and Gaby finds it adorable. 

“You  _ like  _ it when it hurts,” Gaby purrs.

Illya blushes and turns his head toward the couch and doesn’t answer. 

Gaby raises her hands and walks away. “You’re  _ both  _ exhausting. I’m going to get ready for bed.” 

Napoleon receives the room service and carefully arranges Illya’s where he can reach it without having to move, and true to his word it is hot, rich soup and vodka with no ice, but in a practical amount. Gaby’s dinner is waiting for her when she emerges from the shower, and Napoleon’s is mostly finished—or at least picked over. The bourbon is all consumed, however. 

Despite having a shower that morning, Napoleon takes another before bed, and helps Gaby get Illya into one of them, with his leg elevated carefully and his back propped up and probably covered in more blankets than he’d ever even seen before. 

“If you need anything, we’re not far,” Gaby assures him. 

Illya nodded, bleary-eyed. Gaby has plied him with some of the pain pills prescribed, and that, combined with the hot meal and glass of vodka (and blood loss) has rendered him almost dizzy. “You locked the door?” 

“Yes, Illya.” 

“Window?” 

“It’s too hot, but it’s shut,” Gaby assures him. 

“[Where’s my gun?]” he asks, sliding into Russian. Fuck, he is tired. 

“Illya. We’re all perfectly safe here,” Gaby says, sitting on the bed and running her fingers through his hair. 

Illya’s head jerks as he fights sleep, and he lays his hand over her wrist. 

“[It’s under your pillow,]”  Napoleon calls, settled into the other bed even with his hair still damp, he’s tired enough to leave it as a problem for the morning. “[With the safety on and no round in the chamber.]”

Gaby rolls her eyes and then leans down to kiss Illya’s forehead, then lifts his hand to her mouth and kisses the knuckles too, and then his mouth. “Sleep, Illya.”

She stays a moment longer, after his eyes are closed, just smoothing his hair, cupping his cheek, rubbing gently beneath his chin. He looks different when he’s sleeping; not fragile, and not softer, just…different. 

“Do you think he lets his guard down in his dreams?” Gaby asks, as she settles into bed next to Napoleon, and he starts to scoot over to give her a modest amount of room, before her hand lances out and grabs a fistful of the front of his satin pajamas and pulls him back.

“I’m not sure he even dreams,” Napoleon teases. “I think he just shuts down for the night.”

Gaby’s laugh is light and silvery, and she kisses Napoleon across the bridge of his nose. “You’re probably right.” 

Then she releases his pajamas and settles down beside him. Two can play at this game. She takes the side by Illya, and the side by the light. She flicks it off and settles down, definitely onto Napoleon’s side, so he has no choice but to slide against her, though she lets him decide how they should arrange themselves. “Thank  _ you  _ for being sensible enough not to get shot, anyway.” 

“I’ve decided I don’t like it,” Napoleon assures her, matter-of-factly. He quickly figures it would be awkward to let her be the big spoon, though if she expressed a preference, he would  _ try.  _  Instead, he curls around and against her, and she presses her back to his front, and they arrange the pillows comfortably so they each have one. “It’s my policy not to.”

She laughs again, and decides she does like him, after all. Even if he’s just as stubborn as Illya in his own way. His wide shoulders mean she can lean right back against him, and reach up to run her fingers through his damp hair until it’s hopelessly mussed.

“Good night, Napoleon,” she tells him, when she can feel his annoyance turn fond.


	8. Chapter 8

Illya is awake and has somehow dragged himself to the bath without assistance when Gaby opens her eyes. Napoleon is a warm weight behind her: he gets floppy and pliable (omega-like) when he sleeps, in a way that he isn't when he's awake. She thinks it's sweet.

But Illya is going to kill himself getting out of the bath, she's sure, so she groans the rest of the way awake when she hears slipping and cursing.

Illya is _not_ going to kill himself, but getting to the bath one-legged proves much easier than getting _in_ to it. He can't let them find him here like this, so he is, almost, finally, settled in the tub when Gaby appears at the door.

“Can I help you?” they ask at the same time, with entirely different meanings. They both agree that English is funny that way.

“You’re not supposed to take more than a sponge bath with that injury, you know,” Gaby says, after a moment. “You’re not supposed to get it wet.”

She can see, however, his determination to do it anyway, so she sighs and moves in to help him, careful to leave his injured leg out of the bath and over the side of the tub. “You are ridiculous. You barely even fit into this bath anyway.”

Gaby helps him get as comfortable as possible, and then settles over the back of the tub, letting him rest his head in her lap, and running her fingers through his hair. “Do you feel better this morning?”

‘Not really,’ is on the tip of his tongue, but then Illya catches a whiff of her, and her running her fingers through his hair threatens to undo him.

She traces idle fingers over his skin, enjoying how his short hair shifts against her palm. She can see him starting to relax, and it makes her feel better.

“I do now,” he says, gazing up at her, and, by way of explanation, “Got sore in bed, and you were asleep. How's Napoleon?”

“He’s a very soft sleeper,” she tells Illya. “Very pliant, and very dedicated to remaining asleep. I think that must mean he trusts us.”

She leans down to kiss him upside-down. “You can find out for yourself, when your leg is healed.”

“Mm,” Illya says, relaxed, too, by the kiss, by her presence, knowing Napoleon sleeps soundly in the next room. “Maybe I am not actually _so_ sore.”

“No?” Gaby asked, innocently, as if she couldn’t take his meaning. She slid her hands under the back of his neck and rubbed his shoulders with strong motions, feeling the way tension is already starting to slide out of him. “You’re feeling up to a little activity?”

Illya hums again, leaning forward so she has better access. “Always.”

She smiles at him, slightly wicked, and shifts out from under his head, folding a towel over the rim of the tub for him to lean his neck against. Then she sheds her nightgown in a quick over the head motion, and eases into the bath around him, carefully, though it makes the water slosh dangerously high against the sides of the tub. She pays close attention to how near the water level gets to his injury and seems satisfied, though she reaches out to curl her hands around his ankle and start massaging his foot, his ankle, the lowest part of his calf.

“Ooh—ah,” Illya says, half-ticklish and worried she’ll make him twitch enough to hurt himself. He laughs and takes her free hand, threads their fingers together. “Not the feet.”

“Are you ticklish?” Gaby sounds surprised, mischievous, piqued. She leaves off for now, however, but that information definitely gets filed away for later. She leans over him, easing their bodies together carefully, tracing her fingers against the inside of his thigh under the water line. “That’s very cute.”

“I am not,” Illya protests. “Cute.”

He hisses and takes her hand again, nervous perhaps that he won’t be able to keep still at worst and that the bath water will spill everywhere at best. He squeezes her nipple that peeks out of the water, and trails his fingertips down to squeeze her cock as, with his other arm, he massages her ass. “ _You_ are the cute one.”

Gaby laughs at him, a light sound, getting her hand on his cock in return, canting her hips forward so his angle is a little easier. She puts her free hand on the edge of the tub to pull herself forward to kiss him without leaning, shifting until his fingers start to dip into her and then sighing against his mouth; for Illya, she’ really warmed up to this. It helps that he has very long, very clever fingers. “Did your doctor say how much exercise you’re supposed to get?”

“Fuck what doctor says. I’d rather fuck you.” Impatient, Illya hooks his ankle over the lower end of the bath and guides her leg over his hip as he kisses her protests quiet. “Do not slosh too much. Might slip when we get out.”

She glances over the edge of the tub at the puddle forming on the floor and shifts her hips forward, giving his knot a little promising squeeze with her fingers. “I’ll put a towel down.”

Illya gives a slightly choked sound, which tapers off into a laugh. She’s beautiful and slick over the top of him, and he can’t get enough of her lips. His concern about his wound is gone, except when he tries to arch up into her with that leg and thinks better of it. “Urgh.”

“Sit still and let me do the work,” Gaby says, softly. She lines their hips up, and the bath sloshes, and she laughs a little, breathless, and then guides him against her. It’s still tight; he’s big, her body is small, and she has to take him in increments, let the stretch come naturally, but if they’re slow and careful it feels—surprisingly good to be filled to her limits with him. Like he can touch _everywhere_ inside her, and she has to gasp and moan softly with every little movement because it feels so much, so _big_.

Illya laughs—even when he’s technically fucking her she has to be in control—and he likes it—and braces his hands on her slim waist, ready to help where he can, and where he’s not overwhelmed by the slow stretch over his cock he’s mesmerized by the changes across her face, her breaths, her little noises.

He hopes it’s not rude to wonder if Napoleon’s face goes like this when he’s being fucked, too.

“Gaby,” he breathes, trembling faintly with the effort not to push up into her, though he’s becoming increasingly sure that this could cure even a gunshot to the leg. He kisses her, moaning loudly, and laughing again as their next movement sloshes water all over the floor.

“Illya,” she gasps, halfway to scolding, rolling her hips now to keep him from straining himself any further. “Don’t you dare tear your stitches.”

“Ooh,” Illya groans, biting her lip as he pulls her back into a kiss, testing her in the way of alphas, “what are you going to do about it?”

Any authority she might have is undermined by the breathy, desperate tone of her voice as she shifts her hips forward a little more, into a slightly circular motion as she rocks herself on him, pushing herself to try and take part of his knot, but it’s not happening today; not in the bath, not at this angle, but she does manage to get him deep enough for her to get off, her body clamping hard on him as orgasm shudders through her in waves.

Her muscles tighten around him and just enough of his knot that Illya follows after. He can feel his come running down his dick without his knot to hold it in place, so both of their seed floods the bath, but neither of them care. He supposes if they’ll be on an airplane they’ll need to not smell _quite_ so much like each other, but for now, the smell of their scents together is almost relaxing. Illya sighs and closes his eyes.

“I still need to wash your hair. In a minute.”

“Not in this water,” Gaby said, sounding blissful anyway. She stays relaxed against his chest, comfortable and easy in the aftermath. She isn’t ready to move yet, anyway. “And I’ll change your bandages. In a minute.”

“Sounds good,” Illya says, and closes his eyes, lets himself drift. She’s warm and solid in his arms, and he has quite forgotten about the pain in his leg.

He snorts awake at a rapping on the door.

“There’s only one bathroom,” Napoleon calls, apparently tired of waiting patiently.

Gaby sits up, sloshing water as she blinks awake and finally getting out of the tub to retrieve a towel and, after a glance at Illya, unlock the door just a crack.

“I need to use the facilities,” Napoleon tells her.

“Can’t you wait for a shower?”

“...The _facilities_ ,” he repeats. “You can have it back after I’m done, but we’re not at the stage in our relationship yet where we’re that comfortable. We never will be.”

Illya and Gaby raise their eyebrows at each other.

“What if we close our eyes?” Illya wonders, grinning. He kisses Gaby apologetically. “It seems I’ll never get to wash your hair.”

Gaby shrugs. “Not sure it needs it yet.”

The schedules on which long-haired women wash their hair remains a mystery to Illya, as he heaves himself into a sitting position. This was a bad idea, he realizes, having no plan for getting out of the bath.  

“Don’t get it wet!” Gaby scolded. “Pull the plug and wait for it to drain before you stand up.”

Outside, Napoleon leaned against the door frame and listened painfully to the gurgling sounds of water draining out of the tub as Gaby and Illya worked on getting him out of it carefully. The scent of alpha; of both of them intermingled, washed out around him, and he smiled to himself.

Gaby brought Illya a towel and helped him step over the tub once it was empty, very carefully onto the sopping floor.

“Be careful not to slip, Napoleon,” she tells him, as they all ease past each other in the doorway, bodies fitting snugly through the opening.

He makes an immediately disgusted noise as the water instantly soaks his socks, and she and Illya grin at each other as they head into the bedroom.

Illya has slung the towel low around his hips, but Napoleon doesn't give him a second glance. He does, probably, look pale and unalpha right now, but he had hoped…

“What are we going to do with him?” he asks Gaby quietly when she helps him into a chair.

“Let him piss in peace,” Gaby said, but then she glanced up and realized he meant overall. She lowered her tone a little. “He’s denying himself. We make that worse than indulging, for him.”

Illya huffs. “Maybe we wait for his heat. That will sort him out, won't it?”

His eyes narrow, however, with another possibility, one he likes even less than their current arrangement of platonic sexual-tension bickering. “He won't—go _out_? To someone else? We can't let him. Is too dangerous.”

Gaby leaned back. “He’s been doing that his whole life, I imagine. Why is it dangerous now? Or do you mean it’s dangerous for whoever he picks, because we’ll eat them?”

She goes to fetch Illya’s clothes, bringing him a fresh clean set. The pants from yesterday are already in the bin, since the doctors has mostly had to cut them off him. “I don’t think he will, though. He likes us, he’s just…he has to be _difficult_.”

Gaby is sure she can hear Napoleon rinsing out the tub before he dares to set foot in it, and she laughs a little, amused by his fussiness.

“We burned the tapes, Gaby,” Illya protested. “CIA probably hates him as much as KGB hates me. And—you do not tell him this—I worry. He is not con-artist-thief-spy in heat. He is helpless. He _needs_ us.”

Gaby considers this, finishing toweling off as she thinks about it. She takes a little pity on Illya. “And we need him, too. Even when he’s not a con-artist-thief-spy.”

 _Maybe_ , she allows to herself, especially _when he’s not._

“Maybe,” Illya allows, fussy (and chauvinist).

“We’ll take care of him,” Gaby decides. “If he goes out, we’ll follow him. We’re spies, after all. But maybe before that happens we make sure he _wants_ to stay in.”

“Lock him in,” Illya suggests, not entirely joking. “I'm not following him to some den of sin and—”

Illya doesn't even believe in sin or hell, unless hell was watching another alpha have Napoleon. It reminds him too much of his mother, which is its own level of fucked. Maybe he should tell Napoleon this. It might be just repulsive enough to get him to stop.

Or he'd laugh at Illya.

“If you want to try holding onto him that tightly, maybe you should confess to him what you want instead?” Gaby suggests, as she pulls on her dress for the day. Why they put the closures in the middle of the back, she’ll never understand, but she’s getting to quite like wearing dresses instead of dirty coveralls. Though she’ll never hesitate to shove her hands into an engine when it’s necessary, it doesn’t mean she can’t look nice the rest of the time.

“I don’t think he plans on changing his method of operating for us,” Gaby continues, approaching Illya and offering her back, lifting her hair out of the way. “Zip me up, please? We’ll have to accept that he can’t be leashed, though he may wear our collar. Can you do that, Illya?”

Illya gladly zips her up, and sighs. He doesn't know how to answer that, and anyway his thoughts are rather deviantly wondering what Napoleon would _look_ like in a collar.

“I could live with that,” he says, rather morose, and works to get himself dressed. He only needs help at one point standing up to get his trousers on, and they are still left waiting for Napoleon to emerge.

He does, eventually, having clearly taken a shower while they dressed. He hesitates to take them both in as he exits, Gaby now seated on the floor to refresh Illya’s bandages, working carefully to keep from pulling anything.

“You really shouldn’t strain yourself with that, you know,” Napoleon can’t resist adding. He knows he shouldn’t but he does anyway. “I suppose there’s hardly any point telling you.”

Illya consoles himself that maybe Napoleon does care, and snags his hand as he goes by. He doesn’t really know what to do with it, though, so they lock eyes for a few seconds before Illya mumbles (even though he likes it), “Don’t fuss. Gaby fusses enough.”

“I’ll leave it to Gaby to remind you how much good a one legged spy is,” Napoleon says, giving Illya’s fingers a reassuring squeeze to suggest he’s mostly joking, and then lifting them to his mouth, pressing his lips warmly against the backs of Illya’s knuckles in brief, casual affection before he goes to fetch his suit for the day. “While you were in the bath, Waverly called up. We have a charter plane this evening to take us to fashion week. Plenty of time to get ready.”

Illya’s breath hitches briefly (Gaby rolls her eyes at him), but then the moment is gone. It’s how he feels a lot of the time with Napoleon.

“Oh, well you could have told me while I was doing all the packing,” Gaby complains, and flops into the chair next to Illya. “Any ideas what to do until then?”

“You two should go to the museu—uhh—park,” Illya corrects, glaring at Napoleon. “Where there is nothing to steal. I’ll meet you at the plane with the luggage.”

“Nonsense, you’ll go with us,” Gaby scolded. “We could find a nice cafe just sit in the sun.”

“As if you wouldn’t find just as much trouble to get into if we left you here alone, Peril,” Napoleon observes, cheerfully. “Of course we’ll all go out together. I could get you a wheelchair, if you like.”

He smiles serenely in the face of their twin scowls, and tightens his tie up crisp and nice. “A nice cafe it is, then.”

“No chair!” Illya barks, in case his glare wasn’t clear enough. He’s mostly just irritated at his leg, now. He’s going to be useless in Italy.

They call for their luggage to be sent ahead of them, and get a cab to some place Illya is determined to try. Illya wears his gun under his coat, even though it is too hot for one; Gaby carries her gun in her purse, and lets Illya take Napoleon’s arm to steady him while she walks ahead and buys flowers for their buttonholes.

**Author's Note:**

> We hope you enjoy the result of the RP we wrote as we waited for The Last Jedi to come out.


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